Breakthrough Brings Less Than Kind to U.S.

LOS ANGELES/TORONTO: Breakthrough Entertainment has licensed the Canadian comedy-drama series Less Than Kind to the DirectTV specialty channel Audience Network in the U.S. to debut this fall.

Less Than Kind is produced by Breakthrough Entertainment in association with Buffalo Gal Pictures and was created by Marvin Kaye and Chris Sheasgreen. The third season will air in January 2012 on HBO Canada and The Movie Network Canada. The series follows a teenager (Jesse Camacho) growing up in a loving but dysfunctional Jewish family in Winnipeg.

“We are delighted to export Less Than Kind to the U.S. via DirecTV and its exciting new specialty programming channel and look forward to bringing this unique and celebrated series to broadcasters worldwide,” said Nat Abraham, the VP of distribution for Breakthrough Entertainment.

“Clever, smart and unpredictable, Less Than Kind is a perfect fit for the Audience Network,” commented Patty Ishimoto, the VP of entertainment at DIRECTV and general manager of the Audience Network. “We are thrilled to add it to our line-up of comedy programming and to introduce our viewers to the eccentric members of the Blecher family.”

Showrunner and Canadian actor/comedian Mark McKinney, said, “This really is a tradition going back to Kids in the Hall. We would write the weirdest sketch we could and then try and make it accessible to the audience. You want your characters to have afflictions and have to deal with things. In this case, our lead is overweight but the irony is that he’s carrying the burden of this tremendously dysfunctional family."