Viasat Comes On Board for The Firm

LOS ANGELES/TORONTO: Entertainment One (eOne) has aligned with Viasat Broadcasting for a distribution financing co-venture for The Firm. 

The deal, which marks Viasat’s foray into the distribution financing arena, covers the TV broadcasting rights in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Eastonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Czech and Ghana, along with on-demand rights for its Viaplay services. Based on John Grisham’s best-selling novel of the same name, the show will be simulcast on Sundays at 10 p.m. on Global in Canada and NBC in the U.S., and is also set to air in more than 125 territories on Sony’s AXN. 

“We’re thrilled to embark on this joint venture with Viasat Broadcasting. They have the largest geographical broadcast footprint in Europe so we see this as a no-brainer as we plan to expand and build our relationship with them,” said Peter Emerson, the president of entertainment at eOne Television International. “As part of our unique non-traditional approach to getting projects greenlit by circumventing the pilot process and boldly order straight-to-series, we look for great partners like Viasat who commit to investing in properties in the early stages which demonstrates tremendous support for the creative vision and direction of the series.”

Laurence Miall-d’Août, the chief of staff for free TV at Viasat, commented: “We seek to innovate in all areas of our business, and this is the latest example of thinking outside of the usual TV boxes. The Grisham novels are great properties that have enjoyed tremendous success in print and on the big screen, so we are very excited about teaming up with a leading studio with a proven track record to develop The Firm for the small screen in Europe. This is a new way of doing business which not only secures us the broadcasting rights for our linear channels, as well as online streaming rights in our territories, but also creates an ongoing revenue stream as we share the revenues for the worldwide sales.”

Click here to read our interview with The Firm‘s executive producer, Lukas Reiter.