BBC Worldwide Unveils ATF Offerings

LONDON, November 12: BBC
Worldwide heads to this year’s Asia Television Forum (ATF) with a wide range of
natural history, factual, children’s, drama and lifestyle titles, as well as a
diverse slate of formats.

Headlining BBC Worldwide’s
natural history slate is Wild China,
the BBC’s first co-production in China, which offers insight into one of the
world’s most mysterious and magnificent countries, and Life in Cold Blood, which tells the story of reptiles and amphibians.
Life in Cold Blood completes
Sir David Attenborough’s overview of life on the planet.

BBC Worldwide will also
showcase a number of titles from its drama catalogue, including Mistresses, which follows the lives and loves of a group of
30-something girlfriends. Other offerings include Fairy Tales, which offers grown-up adaptations of four
childhood classics—Cinderella,
The Emperor’s New Clothes, Billy
Goat’s Gruff and Rapunzel. Also available at the market is Sense and
Sensibility, adapted by Andrew
Davies (Bleak House and Pride
and Prejudice) from Jane Austen’s
classic novel; Frankenstein, a
re-imagining of the novel from the team behind Primeval; and the new thriller The Whistleblowers.

On the history front, BBC
Worldwide will present the six-part Warriors, based on the lives of men such as Napoleon and
Spartacus who shaped the world around them. In the genre of lifestyle, the
company will offer Michael Palin’s New Europe, which sees the popular comedian and traveler
continue his global odyssey; Top Gear, the British motoring magazine show. Another highlight is Earth:
The Power of the Planet, which
uses specialist imaging and compelling narrative to tell the life story of our
planet.

BBC Worldwide’s children’s
offerings include In The Night Garden, a modern interpretation of a nursery rhyme picture book from
Ragdoll, the creators of Teletubbies, and two new animation series: Animalia, based on the popular books by Graeme Base, and Freefonix, an adventure series following three musical
renegades.

New formats available at
the ATF include Dance X, which
was recently licensed to ABC in the U.S., and pits rival dance teams against
each other; Find Me The Face, a
reality show which follows two top talent scouts as they look for the next
supermodel; Fortune—Million Pound Giveaway, where five philanthropists give away a million
pounds of their own money to deserving members of the public; and School’s Out, a quiz show which sends celebrities back to
school and tests whether they are at the top or bottom of the class.

—By Irene Lew