Parthenon Entertainment Clinches German Deal for Children’s Drama

LONDON, November 21: Parthenon
Entertainment has sold the children’s drama series Roman Mysteries to German public broadcaster ARD.

The deal was brokered
between Parthenon and Telepool, a German and European distribution company
specializing in cinema and television. ARD acquired the first high-definition
10×23-minute season of Roman Mysteries, with an option to acquire the second season.

Roman Mysteries will air in Germany in 2008. ARD will broadcast Roman
Mysteries in its kids’ magazine
Tigerenten Club, which airs on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The series will
also air on the ARD/ZDF owned children’s channel KI.KA on Saturday afternoon.

Commissioned
by the BBC and produced by British production company The Little
Entertainment Group (LEG), Roman Mysteries follows four friends—Flavia, Nubia, Jonathan and
Lupus—as they struggle to live through one of history’s most turbulent
times. Roman Mysteries is the BBC’s largest children’s drama commission to date. Each
series is shot entirely on location, the first in Tunisia and Malta and the
second in Bulgaria and Malta. The first season of Roman Mysteries garnered consistently strong ratings
when it aired on BBC One and CBBC earlier this year. The second season went
into production in August and will deliver in December 2007.

Peter Pas, the commercial
director of Parthenon Entertainment, said: “I’m extremely pleased Roman
Mysteries has been picked up by
such a key broadcaster in Europe’s most lucrative and competitive TV market.
Telepool moved very quickly to secure Roman Mysteries for ARD, which is testament to the quality of the
show. The reaction to the series at both Mipcom Junior and Mipcom couldn’t have
been better and I’m confident we will be concluding many more deals
imminently.”

—By Irene Lew