Buyers embark on Indian Summers ahead of UK TX

A raft of international broadcasters have picked up big-budget UK drama Indian Summers ahead of its launch on Channel 4 in the UK this weekend.

All3Media-backed New Pictures made the series for UK free-to-air broadcaster Channel 4 and US pubcaster PBS. It debuts on Channel 4 this Sunday in a 9pm slot.

All3Media International is distributing the ten-part series and has presold it to Arte in France and Germany, NRK in Norway, DR in Denmark and RUV in Iceland.

BBC Worldwide’s recently-launched BBC First channel had already picked up first-window rights to the show in Australia while Kiwi pubcaster TVNZ has now taken it in New Zealand.

“International broadcasters have been quick to recognise the potential of Indian Summers,” said John Wagener, COO at all3media International. “We have already seen an exceptionally strong pre-sale response in the international market for New Pictures’ recent critically-acclaimed drama The Missing and we expect Indian Summers to prove equally successful.”

The period drama is set in northern India during the last years of the British Empire. It tells the story of the era from the point of view of two families, one of colonial Brits and the other Indian. The cast includes Julie Walters (Harry Potter) and Henry Lloyd-Hughes (The Inbetweeners).

“It’s a period in time that has not been covered, the end of the Raj as power is being taken from the British,” one of the show’s exec producers Elaine Pyke told TBI soon after it was ordered. “It is also unique in that it tells the story from the point of view of an Indian family as well as a British family.”