Deals round-up: ‘Masked Singer’ sells to Russia; AMC adds ‘War Of The Worlds’; Two Rivers lands Scottish order

The Masked Singer

The Masked Singer lands in Russia

Russia’s NTV has picked up hit entertainment format The Masked Singer and is preparing a local adaptation.

The nine-part show is being produced by Endemol Shine Group’s Russian prodco Weit Media and will debut next month.

To date, the MBC Korea/Fremantle distributed format from South Korea has racked up 25 licence sales around the world, according to consultancy K7 Media’s annual report on the top 100 travelling unscripted TV formats, Tracking the Giants.

The show, which debuted in South Korea as King Of Mask singer, became a smash hit for Fox in the US and has also aired on ITV in the UK.

AMC welcomes The War Of The Worlds

AMC Networks has picked up rights to BBC One drama The War Of The Worlds after striking a deal with the show’s distributor ITV Studios (ITVS).

The show, produced by ITVS-owned Mammoth Screen, will become available on the company’s ad-free service AMC Premiere. The HG Wells adaptation is set in Edwardian England and explores life on earth as aliens take over.

Other sales struck by ITVS ahead of its Screenings event today in London include fellow Mammoth title Noughts + Crosses being acquired by HBO Europe and BBC First in Australia.

The prodco’s World War Two drama World On Fire, meanwhile, will air on BBC First and BBC Player Asia, along with Mainstreet Pictures’ character-driven relationship thriller Gold Digger.

Among a raft of other deals, all six seasons of the Emmy-nominated Schitt’s Creek have sold in a pan-regional deal to ViacomCBS Networks Americas.

BBC Scotland orders from Two Rivers

Two Rivers Media has been commissioned by BBC Scotland to make what is being billed as the channel’s first show exploring the history of modern Scotland.

Becoming Scotland (4 x 60 minutes) will bring together the nation’s thinkers, politicians, cultural leaders, artists and actors in a bid to tell the definitive story of the last five decades of Scottish life.

Mick McAvoy, head of factual at Two Rivers, said: “This landmark documentary series will begin in the Seventies and we will hear from Scotland’s best and brightest to reveal how the nation has grown, suffered and changed to become the place it is today.”