World Screen

LONDON: Freeview is aligning with Digital UK (which is owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Arqiva) for a new connected TV service that will deliver broadcast and on-demand TV content for free. The companies' shareholders are backing a five-year plan to support the development and marketing of the connected …

LONDON: DRG has signed a first-look agreement with the indie producer Latimer Films, taking on distribution for the doc Going to the Dogs. The one-hour Going to the Dogs is from filmmaker Penny Woolcock for Channel 4's Cutting Edge strand. It explores the criminal subculture of the dog-fighting world. Matthew …

LONDON: The U.K.’s BBC Three has commissioned I Survived a Zombie Apocalypse, an urban-survival game show pitting contestants against the undead. The 7×60-minute series sees eight participants trapped in a shopping mall, surrounded by the walking dead. They must use their wits and survival tactics to complete tasks that will …

PREMIUM: Jay Stuart takes a look at the efforts being made by Austria, Belgium and Croatia to lure international TV drama co-productions. “Benefits and incentives are tremendously important for producers,” says Arie Bohrer, the president of the European Film Commission Network, an association of national and regional film commissions representing …

LONDON: UKTV has implemented a new editorial structure, under which Steve North, the general manager of Dave and Gold, gets a broader role, as does Adrian Wills, who heads up Drama and Yesterday. North adds Watch to his portfolio, while Wills' remit now includes Alibi. Emma Boston, the director of …

LONDON: ITV and the BBC have secured the shared exclusive free-to-air broadcast rights in the U.K. for the World Cup tournaments in 2018 and 2022 across TV, radio and online. The 2018 finals will be the 14th consecutive FIFA World Cup that ITV and BBC broadcast together. Niall Sloane, ITV's …

PREMIUM: At the L.A. Screenings this year, more procedural dramas were on view than in past years, which satisfied Jakob Mejlhede, the senior VP of acquisitions and programming at Modern Times Group (MTG) and the chief content officer of MTGx. “I was quite satisfied with the one-hours,” he commented. “There …

LONDON: Sky Sports is to launch the first-ever TV channel dedicated exclusively to European football, with Sky Sports 5. Sky Sports customers will be able to receive the new channel as part of their sports package, and as an added bonus can also get two years free Sky Broadband Unlimited. …

LOS ANGELES: CBS Studios International (CBSSI) and France's M6 have re-upped their volume agreement, building on a programming partnership that began in 2003. The relationship between CBSSI and M6 began with the acquisition of NCIS by the French net. Other CBS series that have performed well for the channel include …

LONDON: Shine International has secured the distribution rights for ITV's Code of a Killer and Channel 5's Rome: The World's First Superpower. Produced by World Productions, Code of a Killer is a two-part drama that tells the true story of Alec Jeffrey's discovery of DNA fingerprinting in the 1980s. It …