SALES
Channel 4’s classic series “Fresh Meat,” a still-popular dramatic comedy about student life, will celebrate its ten-year anniversary this weekend with a cast and creators’ reunion in London, and global distributor All3Media has announced several recent sales deal for the program ahead of the event.
Agreements for the series have been closed in the U.S. and Canada on the Roku Channel (AVOD) as well as on Tubi (also U.S. and Canada AVOD) and on Crackle for AVOD in the U.S. The show is also available on Amazon Prime Video in the US.
Created by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain for Channel 4 from Objective Media Group, U.K., the series’ six key cast members – Jack Whitehall, Charlotte Ritchie, Zawe Ashton, Joe Thomas, Kimberly Nixon and Greg McHugh – will all return for the reunion. The group will be joined by the creators for an in-person discussion and screening at London’s BFI on Saturday, Jan. 15.
*****
Banijay Rights has closed a first clutch of sales for the new prison drama “Screw,” a Channel 4 series produced by STV Studios which premiered in the U.K. on Jan. 6. The series has been acquired by SVOD platform BritBox in Australia and broadcaster TVNZ in New Zealand. “Screw” comes from BAFTA-nominated writer Rob Williams (“Killing Eve”) and unspools in C-Wing of the Long Marsh men’s prison where higher-ups are looking to replace tenured staff with cost-efficient new hires while established veteran Leigh Henry (Nina Sosanya) fights to hold onto her position.
Screw
Credit: Banijay Rights
STREAMING
Viacom18’s Indian AVOD service Voot has entered into a three-year content partnership with on-demand streaming platform Ullu, where 100 Ullu shows will be available to watch on Voot for free from Jan. 14. Titles include “Tandoor,” “Assi Nabbe Pure Sau,” “Panchali,” “Cyanide,” “Peshawar,” “Paper,” “The Bull of Dalal Street,” “Tadap,” and “Pratiksha.”
Viacom 18 is a joint venture of Network 18, the media group controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, and U.S. media conglomerate Viacom.
ACQUISITION
Celebrating its fourth anniversary this month, Viasat World has signed deals with three content production and distribution companies, acquiring a raft of programming for its Epic Drama channel. Working closely with ITV Studios, Viasat World picked up 138 hours of series content including the latest seasons of “Endeavour,” “Murdoch Mysteries” and “Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple” for Epic Drama. The company also secured pay TV and catch-up rights on all titles, plus SVOD, in the deal. Other pickups take in Beta Film’s “Sisi” and All3Media Intl.’s “Dalgliesh.”
Sisi
Copyright: TV Now/ Story House /René Arnold
APPOINTMENT
Independent production company Expectation is mixing up its senior team structure by merging its comedy entertainment and entertainment teams into one department, with James Donkin joining as director of development, Rhe-an Archibald promoted to in-house show-running executive producer and Amy Dallmeyer taking up the position of head of development. According to a statement, the moves were made to reflect the company’s rapidly expanding slate across numerous broadcasters and platforms under creative director Ben Wicks, who coordinated the changes. Donkin, Archibald and Dallmeyer will report directly to Wicks.