FME Announces MIPTV Lineup

LONDON, March 24:
FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME) has announced a diverse slate of programming
for MIPTV that includes music, factual, lifestyle and drama content, headlined
by Satisfaction.

The 10×1-hour Australian
drama series Satisfaction is
set in and around an up-market city brothel and sheds the spotlight on the
world of five high-class escorts and their manager as they juggle the pressures
of their private lives alongside their hidden profession. The series is the inaugural
production of Roger Simpson’s new company, Lonehand Productions. Other scripted
series on offer include Nearly Famous, following a group of performing-arts students who’ve got a load of
talent and a taste of tequila; and Teenage Kicks, centering on a middle-aged divorced father who
moves in with his kids in a crazy attempt to recapture his long-lost youth.

The company is also
bringing a slew of music-related content, including a second season of Live
From Abbey Road. The HD series
brings viewers behind the scenes of one of the most famous recording studios in
the world to meet a host of A-list artists. FME will also offer The Night
James Brown Saved Boston, a
documentary telling the uplifting story of a how a James Brown concert the day
after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination helped prevent a riot in
Boston. Musical history is celebrated in Never Mind The Bollocks 30th
Anniversary Concert, featuring the
Sex Pistols’ concerts at London’s Brixton Academy. Also on offer from the
music-genre is coverage from The Classical BRITS awards event, taking place this May.

In the lifestyle genre,
FME is offering up two new 90-minute specials from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver:
Jamie’s Fowl Dinners and Eat
to Save Your Life. In Jamie’s
Fowl Dinners, a co-production from
Fresh One and Firefly Productions, Jamie hosts a gala dinner to dramatically
demonstrate the reality of how chickens live and die to put food on our plates.
And in Eat to Save Your Life,
from Firefly Productions, Jamie investigates the hidden threats of popular
convenience foods using 18 volunteers with self-confessed bad diets as human
guinea pigs.

Other productions making
their MIPTV debut include DEA,
a reality series following agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency in the U.S.;
Baywatch Beach Body Work-Out, a
fitness DVD inspired by the classic series Baywatch; and The Backyardigans, a children’s animated series aimed at kids aged 2
to 10.

“FME is excited to be able
to offer such a diverse roster of programming at this year’s MIPTV,” said FME’s
CEO, David Ellender. “Our expanding catalogue means that we have more titles than ever.
And there’s a healthy mix of high-class drama, landmark music shows, ground-breaking
documentaries along with strong reality shows, appealing to audiences the world
over.”

—By Ned Berke