ITVW does Proper deal

Canada's Worst Driver

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ITV Worldwide has secured a multi-year development and distribution deal with Canadian indie Proper Television.

The deal gives ITVW exclusive international rights, outside Canada, to all content, formats and series developed by the Toronto-based production house. The move followed the decision by ITVW at the end of June to triple its development and acquisitions investment fund in a bid to significantly expand its work with indies.

Former BBC and Mentorn producer/director Guy O'Sullivan launched Proper TV in 2004 and has grown the business into one of the leading suppliers of factual and factual entertainment in Canada.

The indie has enjoyed ratings success for series such as Canada's Worst Driver, produced for Discovery, and relationship show Newly Wed, Nearly Dead? for female-skewing cable channel Slice.

The distribution agreement includes new workplace format I Suck at My Job, which has been commissioned by public broadcaster CBC. The show takes a light-hearted but potentially life-changing look at people on the brink of losing their jobs and challenges the employees, with the help of experts, to transform their shoddy performance and avoid getting sacked.

Other titles in the pipeline from Proper that will now be represented by ITVW are property format Realtor vs Realtor, for home and garden cable broadcaster HGTV, and Junk Raiders. The latter is a social experiment with a group of anti-consumerists who plan to convert and renovate an old industrial space using objects that were on their way to landfill.

ITVW and its producer partners will also get the chance to work with Proper to co-produce in Canada.

O'Sullivan said: "Building a strategic relationship with a world leader in distribution is a big part of how we intend to grow Proper TV into a major player."

Richard Life, head of factual at ITVW, negotiated the deal.