Former Sony Chairman Sir Howard Stringer has partnered with DRG’s Jeremy Fox and MTG’s Jakob Mejlhede to launch Atrium TV, which will be dedicated to creating premium drama for regional OTT players and telcos.<\/p>\n
Positioned as a \u201ccommissioning club,\u201d Atrium TV will have teams based in London and Los Angeles who are tasked with finding and developing projects and sharing them with “club members.” If members decide to buy into a project, they will be able to license the series for their territory and gain the right to exploit the project in their local market. Sales for the content in the rest of the world will be handled exclusively by DRG.<\/p>\n
With an eye toward exclusivity, there will only be one club member per territory. Viaplay has come on board as the first official club member, representing the Nordics.<\/p>\n
Atrium TV will order a number of high-end drama series over the next five years. There are a number of projects in development, among them The Eagle Has Landed<\/em>, an original concept that will air in 2019, which is the 50th anniversary of man\u2019s landing on the moon. Fandorin<\/em> is based on the novels by Boris Akunin and is being developed by BBC Studios, with a script written by Simon Ashford (The Musketeers<\/em>, Robin Hood<\/em>). Saigon<\/em> is based on the novel by Anthony Grey and tells a story spanning 50 years of Vietnam\u2019s history from the French colonial days of 1925 to the last helicopter from the roof of the American embassy in 1975.<\/p>\n Stringer commented: \u201cThe demand for high-quality drama is increasing throughout the world as new platforms come online and as new audiences consume their programming in an alternative way to linear TV. Atrium helps these new platforms compete with broadcasters and global SVOD players by offering a creative solution for them to offer big-budget drama to their subscribers.\u201d<\/p>\n Mejlhede, the executive VP and head of programming and content development at MTG, said: \u201cWe are delighted to be founding members of Atrium TV, an exciting new venture that combines the talents of the world\u2019s very best storytellers. Audiences today have so much choice, and drama has the power to engage them like no other format. We are therefore thrilled to work together with club members to create unique experiences for viewers around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Fox, the CEO of DRG and Atrium TV, added: \u201cWe have watched the rapid expansion of global streaming services. A great way for local players to compete in their own markets is to share the cost of developing and producing high profile series. That\u2019s the key aim of Atrium. We may think of ourselves as a club\u2014but we are keeping the rules to a minimum. We are all about finding great stories with universal themes and concepts that work specifically in the OTT space. We are encouraging approaches from producers and are especially keen to hear new ideas based on historical novels or major world events.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Sony Chairman Sir Howard Stringer has partnered with DRG’s Jeremy Fox and MTG’s Jakob Mejlhede to launch Atrium TV, which will be dedicated to creating premium drama for regional OTT players and telcos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":350,"featured_media":7562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[1775,1329,1776,1777],"class_list":["post-7561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-atrium-tv","tag-drg","tag-mtg","tag-sir-howard-stringer","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n