Kew continues deals spree with Awesome move

Kew Media Group has acquired a stake in Jeff Norton’s Awesome Media & Entertainment as the Canadian-owned group continues its acquisitions strategy.

Hot on the heels of a deal for TCB Media Rights, Kew (fka Content Media Corp.) has paid an undisclosed amount for the stake.

Awesome is a London-based creative group that former Chorion exec and novelist Norton launched initially to exploit rights around his books.

The company has since expanded into third party content development for TV, and has moved into primetime drama after beginning life as a pre-play kids and family company.

The drama slate includes projects such as Woodland, which is about the search for the missing grandson of a Tolkien-like literary icon; Cortex, a police procedural centred around human memory hacking; and Expat, which has Momentum Television attached and is billed as a contemporary drama.

On the kids and family slate is School Stomp, in development with Cloth Cat Animation, while Canada-based OmniFilm is adapting Norton’s book Dino Knights as Knights of Panterra.

“This partnership with Kew gives Awesome the resources to scale up into a world-class, creatively-driven IP and production company,” said Norton. “I’m looking forward to continuing my obsession with creating and developing the world’s most impactful scripted stories and bringing them to the global campfire that is modern television.”

The deal comes soon after Kew bought London-based factual distributor TCB, and also follows the rebranding of Content to Kew.

Steven Silver and Peter Sussman established the business last year as a Special Purpose Acquisitions Company in Canada, and raised enough cash to acquire UK-based Content and a number of Canada-based production companies including Bristow Global Media.

“Jeff is an amazing talent,” said Silver. “Under the Awesome banner, he has generated the most extraordinary slate of content and we are thrilled he chose Kew as his partner.”