Australia’s ABC TV Acquires New Programming from the BBC

LONDON/SYDNEY: BBC Worldwide Australasia has licensed a raft
of drama, natural history and entertainment programming to Australia’s ABC TV,
including the new 6×50-minute thriller Jekyll.

Produced by Hartswood Films, Jekyll is a contemporary take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s
classic novel, and stars James Nesbitt in the title role. ABC TV has also
picked up The Ruby in the Smoke
and The Shadow in the North, two
90-minute BBC and WGBH co-productions starring Billie Piper (Doctor
Who) as a straight-shooting, Hindi-
speaking, Victorian heroine named Sally Lockhart. Orphaned in mysterious
circumstances, Sally must discover why she is being hunted.

ABC TV has also acquired the drama series The State
Within, a 6×1-hour BBC and BBC America co-production set at
the British Embassy in Washington D.C. Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter,
Black Hawk Down) plays Ambassador Mark
Brydon, who realizes he is being played like a pawn in the aftermath of a
terrorist disaster.

On the factual front, ABC TV has secured two new natural
history titles: the 3×50-minute HD series Galapagos, co-produced by the BBC’s Natural History Unit and
National Geographic; and the 4×50-minute Wild Caribbean, co-produced by the BBC and the Travel Channel. Galapagos
examines the diversity of wildlife of the
islands, while Wild Caribbean illustrates
the magic and the excitement of the Caribbean, and reveals what really lies
behind this violent paradise.

Finally, the BBC has also licensed to ABC the 6×30-minute Fear,
Stress and Anger, a Hartswood Films comedy about
the decline of the baby boomer, starring Peter Davison (The Last
Detective, Doctor Who) and Pippa Haywood (Green Wing).