Distribution in Focus: Sphere Abacus’ Hana Palmer

As buyers descend on the UK capital for Showcase, London TV Screenings and Mip London this week, Broadcast International speaks to Sphere Abacus head of sales, Hana Palmer, , about the key trends and challenges facing the business.

Sphere Abacus has helped to get many high-end scripted and unscripted projects off the ground by pulling together finance, and the gap for gap financing certainly became wider in 2025. We are very committed to this approach to support producers and will continue to find clever ways to ensure programmes are greenlit so we have an appealing pipeline of content to share with our global clients.

Investing in more premium drama with strong IP and high-end factual series – we’re looking for ambitious content which can compete globally.

The acquisition of high-quality content from Canada and other territories, and broadening our relationships with more creators and producers, will allow us to offer an even greater range of premium programming.

We’re also looking at broadening our scope across both scripted and unscripted formats. We have access to some very rich IP in our growing library and through our strong relationships with both Sphere Media and Bell Media which we are actively exploring.

If Channel 4 starts producing and owning more content itself, that pipeline will narrow. There will likely be fewer indie commissions, which means fewer new titles for distributors like us to represent. In practical terms, some of the margin that used to go to third-party distributors will now be retained by Channel 4. Independent distributors may see fewer opportunities, tighter margins, and a more consolidated market — especially if commissioning volumes or budgets don’t grow alongside Channel 4’s new in-house ambitions. The burden will be on us to gap finance more projects – which we are very prepared to do to ensure that high-quality content can be greenlit and available for the international market.

We have an exceptional line-up of new content to present during London Screenings, across scripted (Hunting Alice Bell and Yaga) and unscripted (Wilder and The Maya: War of the Kingdoms). It’s hard to pick just one. But perhaps as it is London TV Screenings, our highlight would be the brand-new drama about the West London duty solicitor Pierre, a 6 x 60-minute series produced by The Lighthouse for Channel 4. It features west London duty solicitor Pierre (David Harewood) as a force of nature: charming and funny, a glamorous character in an unglamorous profession, juggling the pressures of his job, a fragile personal life and just keeping his head above water financially.

His resilience is tested when he begins investigating the suspicious death of a young black client, Michael. As Pierre challenges the police’s portrayal of Michael as a criminal, he unravels a chilling web of institutional corruption.

Pierre’s lead director is Sarmad Masud (You Don’t Know Me) with Jo Johnson (Adolescence) as producer and it is co-written by Bafta-winning screenwriter and playwright, Roy Williams OBE (Soon Gone: The Windrush Chronicles) and Bafta-nominated writer John Donnelly (Summerwater).

Also starring Jason Flemyng (Pennyworth, Boiling Point, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), Michele Austin (Hard Truths, This is Going to Hurt), Dean-Charles Chapman (1917), Nikkita Chadha (Hijack), Christopher Fairbank (Andor), Sara Powell (Last Christmas), Cherrelle Skeete (Hanna), Dylan Ennis and Ezrae Maye.