C4i Lands Spanish Format Sales

LONDON: The Digital Rights Group has closed three format sales in Spain for titles from the C4i catalogue: Time Team, That’ll Tech Em and My Famous Family. 

Batabat optioned the rights for Time Team. The show will feature a team of Spanish archaeologists as areas of historical interest are dug up and evidence is extracted in the region. That’ll Teach Em, produced in the U.K. by Twenty Twenty Television, went to Antena 3. Combining living history and social experiment, the show transports 30 16-year-old volunteers back in time to a 1950s-style state boarding school for one month. Ficcion Produciones took on My Famous Family. The format combines genealogy with history as it takes an "ordinary" member of the public on a journey back through their family tree.  All three are optioned and production is expected to start on all titles later this year.

In other activity in Spain, C4i sold a raft of finished programs to various broadcasters. Tibet Undercover, which reveals the hidden reality of life under Chinese occupation, sold to Television Espanola, Television Valencia and Chellomedia. Chellomedia has also licensed Medicine Men, in which two British doctors challenge the notion that Western medicine is the best. Elsewhere, Sogecable bought the rights to ZCZ’s Sculpture Diaries, a series where renowned art critic Waldemar Januszczak examines sculpture of the world.

Christina Willoughby, the director of sales for the Digital Rights Group, said, "We’re delighted to conclude so many sales to Spain recently. The surge in popularity of C4i’s/DRG’s formats is indicative that broadcasters are increasingly after tried-and-tested ideas that work and which have proved popular in other territories."