Tuesday round-up: Latest news, deals & hires

Rowan Woods leaves Edinburgh TV Festival

The Edinburgh TV Festival is looking for a ne wcreative director after Rowan Woods revealed she would be stepping down after two years in the role.

The former BFI London Film Festival exec is stepping away to concentrate on new projects, with the TV Foundation, Edinburgh TV Festival’s umbrella organisation, looking to recruit her replacement in the new year.

In her two years, Woods has been instrumental in reshaping the annual event, overhauling the way it compiled its programme with the removal of the advisory committee for the most recent festival.

In a further major shake-up last month, the TV Festival launched a process inviting UK cities to bit to host the festival from 2027 onwards, raising the prospect of moving the 50-year-old event out of the Scottish capital for the first time. Read more 

Roku & Blue Ant link on Spanish FAST channel

Blue Ant Media has launched FAST offering Homeful en Español on The Roku Channel in the US and Mexico.

The channel is available in Spanish and offers renovation series from Mike Holmes, whose catalogue Blue Ant acquired in 2022.

Programming on offer includes Holmes for the Holidays, Holmes on Homes Special: Lien on Me and Holiday Makeover: Christmas.

Asian buyers land Sphere Abacus shows

Sphere Abacus has revealed a raft of sales in Asia, with Hong Kong’s Now TV picking up shows including Doubters To Believers: Liverpool FC - Klopp’s Era and Gunpowder Siege.

Also heading to Hong Kong is Harrods: The Rise and Fall of a British Institution and What Really Happened? American Independence, while Thailand’s Brite has picked up shows including Operation: Sharklift and How Not To Get Cancer.

Fewllog Hong King broadcaster HK Television Entertainment Company has bought Travels with Agatha Christie & Sir David Suchet and Alan Cumming’s Most Luxurious Train Journeys: Scotland, while Life in Colour With David Attenborough and Antarctica From Above will be aired on Mediacorp in Singapore.

CNC Media in South Korea is taking Top Guns: Inside the RAF Season 2 (6 x one hour) and ROCK Networks has struck a pan-Asia pact for shows including Barbie Uncovered: A Dream House Divided. Still Road Media’s co-founder and chief exec, Pooja Nirmal Kant, brokered the deals on behalf of Sphere Abacus.

Chronicle Studios partners on Old Knight

Content management platform Chronicle Studios has struck a deal with YouTube creator and VFX artist Gabe Hordos (How to Train Your Dragon) on his animated short film series The Old Knight.

Chronicle Studios discovered Hordos through its AI-powered discovery models that indexes YouTube and other social media platforms in an attempt to identify breakout IP.

The company has been overseeing all content optimisation and monetisation efforts for The Old Knight on Hordos’ YouTube channel, following the film’s launch last year, and claims to have seen monthly impressions rise from 500,000 to over six million in a single month.

The film has been written and directed by Hordos and is entirely produced and animated using traditional methods. It follows a royal knight’s journey to redemption after his services are dismissed by his king.