TVMEA
TAC Studios, the production arm of U.S.-based The Africa Channel, is showcasing new programs at DISCOP Johannesburg, including the single-camera comedy Asylum.
Asylum is a scripted project co-developed with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia producer Conor Galvin. The workplace comedy series follows the lives of the support staff in a foreign embassy in South Africa. Move On, another scripted co-development series, was produced alongside the award-winning writer-producer duo of Matt and Jordan Toronto. The comedy series is about a frantic romantic on a desperate quest to silence her late husband’s ghost, who barges in on every date with a consoling message for her potential suitors. A co-production with Currency MEDIA in Kenya, the drama series The Yard is set in the world of Nairobi’s hip-hop scene.
TAC Studios’ brand-new unscripted finished series My Design Rules, a home-design competition series, and May’s Kitchen, an original cooking series filmed in Egypt, were created with a global aesthetic for audiences both across Africa as well as for North American and U.K. pay TV. There’s also the social-impact reality series The Bank, created by Matt Luetwyler, Rebecca and Doug Henning (Bravo’s Below Deck), which sees philanthropically motivated bankers search the furthest reaches of the world to grant micro loans to small businesses with large community impact.
Brendan Gabriel, Johannesburg-based head of creative and production for TAC Studios, said: “The appetite for African content continues to increase in large part due to the advent of global streaming/OTT platforms. Our productions seek to meet that demand by creating content that is local and authentic yet produced to an aesthetic and quality that meets global standards. This slate of finished productions demonstrates our continued commitment to nurture talent and build capabilities across the continent. Our development efforts also seek to connect African stories and storytellers with experienced creators who have global television experience as we begin taking African content to the world.”
