One Tribe adds Off The Fence pair to bolster development

Regional indie One Tribe TV has created a pair of development roles and hired a pair of former Off The Fence execs to fill them.

Head of development Celine Ritchie and development producer Peter Mills-Frost will work alongside the indie’s long-standing team of development producer Aisling O’Hagan and in-house historian Tom Harrison. Frost-Mills started in his role this week while Ritchie will assume her mantle from next week.

Most recently Ritchie worked at My Octopus Teacher indie Off The Fence (OTF), where she spent 19 years, rising to senior vice-president of development. While there, she developed the multi-award-winning Silverback (BBC/France TV, WNET/Thirteen and Xumo).

She brings with her to One Tribe extensive experience in factual and natural history TV, as well as a track record of building partnerships with broadcasters, brands and philanthropic organisations.

Frost-Mills also joins from OTF where he was development producer since 2020. He also worked on Silverback, as well as Tycoons (CuriosityStream/ZDF) and Destination Wild (Nat Geo).

They exited OTF after new owner Insight TV shuttered the in-house production arm following its acquisition of the producer-distributor.

Their additions come in the wake of One Tribe’s recent commissions Shift the Thrift (BBC Network/BBC Wales), Ash Dykes’ Yellow River Adventure (Insight TV/CCTV) and this month’s A Kingdom in Chaos (ZDF for Arte/Blue Ant Studios), as well as more to-be-announced commissions.

Dale Templar, managing director and co-founder of One Tribe, said: “While we were so sad to hear about the closure of OTF’s production arm, we are thrilled and excited to have Celine and Peter join the busy development team at One Tribe.

“As a company not pigeon-holed by genre, for us they bring that perfect mix of skills in both specialist and popular factual.”