Plimsoll buys into Jackson’s Magnify

Entertainment and wildlife prodco Plimsoll Productions has taken a “substantial” minority stake in Andrea Jackson’s specialist distributor Magnify Media.

The deal will see Magnify taking sole rights to distribute Plimsoll’s catalogue, and comes soon after Grant Mansfield’s Plimsoll revealed it was creating a distribution arm.

Jackson (pictured), the former managing director of acquisitions and formats at DRG, will join Plimsoll’s senior management team and creative board, working alongside the Bristol, UK-based producer’s executive VP, international production, Andrew Jackson (below, right).

“We’ve already had considerable success distributing our own programmes and this partnership helps maintain our record growth, immediately boosting our ability to get our shows to market,” said former Discovery Networks International specials chief Andrew Jackson.

Plimsoll MD Christine Owen added the acquisition would “instantly growing our distribution business with the addition of a first class distribution executive at the top of her game”.

Andrea Jackson founded Magnify and became in its MD in the third quarter of 2015, as TBI reported at the time, with a business plan to target those prodcos unwilling to work with the bigger, consolidated distributors.

“Plimsoll is one of the most editorially strong and commercially interesting  production businesses in the market and I am delighted to be in partnership with them,” said Andrea Jackson.

“They have an exceptionally valuable catalogue of shows and pipeline of production – I will be ensuring best possible international exploitation of these rights.”

Mangnify will continue to distribute third-party rights, with new acquisitions set to be announced shortly.

Last week, Plimsoll secured a 50-hour programming order from new factual-focused SVOD platform Love Nature, which is a joint venture of Smithsonian Networks and Blue Ant Media. Camp Zambia will comprises various forms of blue chip wildlife programming.