BBC’s ‘The Planet’ lands in Japan, US

Japanese broadcaster NHK and PBS in the US are among a raft of companies around the world to have picked up BBC Studios (BBCS) space show The Planets.

The series, which finished airing on BBC2 in the UK this week, is fronted by Brian Cox and uses new production techniques and visual effects to explore Earth’s nearest planetary neighbours.

It’s produced by BBCS’s Science Unit and has been acquired by ABC in Australia, France5, VRT in Belgium and ZDF Info in Germany. Russia’s Amedia, ETV in Estonia and Hungary’s MTVA have also picked up the series from distributor BBCS, along with pubcasters YLE in Finland, DR in Denmark, and NRK in Norway.

The show has already premiered on the BBC Earth channel internationally and has secured more than 520 million views in China, where it was sold to streamer Tencent.

Paul Dempsey, president of global markets for BBCS, said: “BBC Studios is rightly world-renowned for its natural history programmes and now with series such as The Planets we are gaining a similar reputation for our science programming.”