While most will be familiar with the image of John Wayne or Clint Eastwood riding through the Wild West, this one-off documentary explores the widely unacknowledged truth that in 1875, one in four American cowboys was Black. “The film will open our eyes to this hidden reality: there were African-Americans in the Wild West. There […]
Canada’s Blue Ant International has bought Drive Media Rights, the UK-based financier and distributor founded by Ben Barrett and Lilla Hurst. The deal sees Blue Ant’s sales arm acquiring 100% ownership of Drive, with Barrett and Hurst now joining the company as global head of content financing & partnerships and global head of acquisitions & […]
UK-based broadcasters need to “step up” and refocus their efforts on the European market rather than North America, according to top execs working across scripted and unscripted programming. Richard Tulk-Hart, co-CEO at Marcella producer Buccaneer Media, told delegates at yesterday’s inaugural Tellycast Content Funding Festival that scripted costs had soared over the past two years. During a […]
AMC & Foxtel take Drive shows AMC Networks International Southern Europe and Australia’s Foxtel have struck separate deals with UK-based production-funding and distribution agency Drive for a combined 70+ hours of factual content. The agreement with AMC Networks International Southern Europe sees the business acquire over 44 hours of content from Drive’s factual catalogue including true crime […]
UK-based distributor & financier Drive is expecting to invest more than £1.5m ($2m) on programming in 2022, TBI has learned. Drive, launched by Ben Barrett and Lilla Hurst in 2013, has been providing distributor advances for several years but its “covert” approach to show investment is now changing. TBI reported on the company’s “record-breaking” 2020 […]
UK-based financier and distributor Drive has partnered with VFX and animation producer Polar Media to co-produce a show providing behind-the-scenes access to some of the world’s biggest science projects. Giant Science (4 x 60 minutes) will explore the operations of the European Space Agency, the international fusion research project ITER, and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, […]
Bin Laden doc lands in Europe & Oz SBS in Australia, Sweden’s SVT, DR in Denmark and NRK in Norway, along with an unnamed French broadcaster, have acquired Voltage TV’s documentary series Osama bin Laden: The Inside Story. UK distributor Drive struck the deals for the 3 x 60-minute series, which was originally commissioned by Channel 4 and broadcast as Osama bin Laden: […]
Drive strikes Asia deals Broadcasters across Asia have acquired more than 35 hours of factual content following deals with UK-based distributor Drive. ViuTVsix in Hong Kong has picked up a total of six titles, including Auschwitz Untold: In Colour, produced by Fulwell73 for Channel 4 and History Channel USA; The Spy Who Stole The Atom Bomb from Oxford Digital Media; Building Star Trek […]
Streamers dominate the headlines with big budget originals, but delve deeper and it’s spending on acquisitions that has soared over the past decade, to the tune of $38bn in 2020. This is just one of the findings from The New Buyers report, which TBI has gained exclusive access to. Here are five key takeaways that underline the wide-ranging opportunities and changing […]
The number of VOD services launched in the US, UK and EU territories has increased by a third since 2017, a new report has revealed. The Drive New Buyers Report, compiled by WorkShare Consulting, revealed that VOD numbers had risen by 32% over the past four years, from 2270 in 2017 to 3015 in 2020. The […]
