Netflix elects Designated Survivor

Netflix has acquired international rights to new season ABC political drama Designated Survivor.

The deal was first mooted at the LA Screenings, where producer and distributor Entertainment One Television debuted it to global buyers.

A Netflix rep today confirmed a deal had been struck to bring it to all of the territories in which the streaming service operates outside the US and Canada. It will be marketed as an original series.

The SVOD service had tried to buy the Kiefer Sutherland-fronted show in Canada, but lost out to broadcaster CTV.

Designated Survivor – from eOne, The Mark Gordon Company and ABC Studios – opens as Sutherland, playing a little-known US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is named as president after an explosion claims the lives of the incumbent president and all other cabinet members.

Kiefer Sutherland will be at MIPCOM to promote the series.

ABC gave the show a straight-to-series order in December last year. The series premiered last night in the US.

In related news, eOne has partnered with hybrid media firm Fine Brothers Entertainment and gameshow prodco Keller/Noll in a bid to create “pioneering television formats” that “challenge the traditional” TV business model.

The show developed through the initiative will incubate on the FBE Digital Network, which has more than 20 million subscribers, before heading to traditional platforms.

The first show is Quizzicle, a “fast-paced, colorful and hilarious gameshow” that will debut later this year.

Benny and Rafi Fine created FBE in 2004 and have gone on to partner with the likes of Fullscreen on the second season of Emo Dad and Mandeville Films on a half-hour sitcom for YouTube Red, Sing It.

Keller/Noll is a prodco of veteran unscripted producers Cleve Keller and Dave Noll. Since 2007, they have produced more than 1,300 episodes of television.