Friday round-up: Latest news, deals & hires

Viasat, WBD buy Cineflix’s Building Bad

Cineflix Rights has closed multiple deals with international broadcasters for its unscripted series, with Shark Teeth Films’ Building Bad acquired by Viasat for its Nordic and CEE platforms, and by Warner Bros. Discovery for its Benelux platforms.

The show, produced for Crave in Canada, reveals the ingenuity of enterprising criminals and is among a raft of deals from Cineflix Rights, which has also sold seasons 4-6 of Killer Cases to TV4 in Sweden. 

SBS Viceland (Australia), Max (Benelux), TV 4 (Sweden), YLE (Finland), and NRK (Norway) have all acquired Chalkboard TV’s Sue Perkins Into Alaska, with BBC Studios taking Poland, pan-African and pan-Asian rights.

Other deals include SBS Food (Australia) picking up ITV1 show Dermot’s Taste of Ireland, while DR (Denmark), YLE (Finland), and SBS On Demand (Australia) have bought An Optimist’s Guide to the Planet.

Mark Gatiss preps Bookish return ahead of premiere

UKTV has ordered a second run of Mark Gatiss’ upcoming drama Bookish for U&alibi before the first series has even aired.

The crime drama, written by Gatiss, will also see him star as an erudite and unconventional Gabriel Book, who helps the police solve crime from his antiquarian bookshop.

The second series will run for six 70-minute episodes with filming due to get underway this summer.

The debut series of Bookish is set to launch in July on UKTV’s specialist crime drama channel U&alibi.

The show is produced by ITV Studios label Eagle Eye Drama with Beta Film as an international partner handling the world sales. PBS Distribution holds the North American rights for the first series. Read more

NZ expands rebate scheme by $340m

New Zealand has unveiled plans to pump NZ$577m ($340m) into its International Screen Production Rebate scheme over the next four years.

The move comes ahead of NZ’s federal budget next week and will allow TV series costing more than NZ$4m to receive a 20% cash rebate. A further 5% rebate is available for productions spending more than NZ$30m, subject to other qualifying criteria.

The injection means total funding for the rebate scheme will stand at NZ$1.09bn across the next four years, with the initative aimed at supporting an industry that employs around 24,000 people domestically and generates NZ$3.5bn in annual revenue.

UK’s Neal Street snaps up Sherwood exec

House Productions’ exec producer Harriet Spencer is jumping to Call the Midwife and The Franchise indie Neal Street, Broadcast can reveal.

Spencer will take on the newly created senior role of executive producer immediately, working alongside exec producer Julie Pastor and head of development Lola Oliyide to develop and produce original TV projects and identify new voices. She will also join the All3Media label’s leadership team.

At House, she led both series of James Graham’s Sherwood for BBC1, as well as The Good Mothers for Disney+, which won the Berlinale Series Award. Read more 

C4 hands Broedmachine first commission

Channel 4 in the UK has ordered a school-based sitcom following a year head with little teaching experience, marking the debut commission for Bafta-winning producer Afolabi Kuti’s indie Broedmachine.

Based on writer and creator Delia-René Donaldson’s own experiences, Schooled follows Kayleigh Clarke, a newly appointed Head of Year 10 with zero teaching experience and little patience for teenagers, as she faces off against Ofsted inspections, AI-generated scandals and riotous parents’ evenings.

Charlie Perkins, head of comedy, commissioned the series with Andy Brereton, senior commissioning editor.

Broedmachine is co-producing the six-part series with Group M Motion Entertainment. It is funded via C4 and Motion’s Diverse Indies Fund, which is overseen by Vivienne Molokwu, senior commissioning editor, and Deep Sehgal, head of creative diversity at Motion Entertainment. Read more