Australia, NZ Sales for Target

LONDON: Target Entertainment Group has sold a range of programs, spanning more than 250 hours, to broadcasters in Australia and New Zealand. 

A package of drama titles went to New Zealand’s Rialto Channel, including She’s Gone, a Size 9 Productions for ITV; Pinochet in Suburbia, a 90-minute Tiger Aspect drama for BBC Two and HBO; Shooting the Past, produced by Talkback for BBC Two; After the Deluge, from Cox Knight Productions/Apollo Films/Network Ten for Australia’s Network Ten; and the Seven Times Lucky’s self-titled, one-off drama Seven Times Lucky.

The soon-to-launch Comedy Central New Zealand acquired season one and two of the VH1 comedy Free Radio, produced by MRB Productions. XYZ Networks (Channel V) picked up three factual-entertainment shows from U.S. music channel Fuse. They are Redemption Song, produced by Zig Zag Productions; Live Through This, produced by Jupiter Entertainment; and Rock and Roll Acid Test, from Superfine Films.

Australia’s Foxtel went for a package of more than 90 hours of factual and factual entertainment, including seasons six through eight of Beach Patrol, the crime and investigation series produced by Evolution for TruTV. It also included three programs from Two Four Broadcast: the factual-entertainment series Conversations with a Serial Killer for Living, the factual series Boozed Up Brits Abroad for Bravo in the U.K. and factual one-off I Sleep with Strangers, also for Living. Foxtel also acquired all 35 episodes of Giant Film and TV’s travel and adventure factual series Cops, Cars and Superstars: Bullrun, plus stv productions travel and adventures series Merchant Navy.

TVNZ took on seasons three and four of The Clinic, an Irish drama series produced by Parallel Pictures for RTE, and My Holiday Hostage Hell, a Prospect Pictures factual series for Living in the U.K.

Glen Hansen, Target’s Los Angeles-based senior VP of sales and programming, for U.S. (West Coast), Australia and New Zealand, said: "Australia and New Zealand have always been major markets for Target and I’m delighted to have concluded these extensive packages so early in 2009."