TVNZ Takes BBC Drama and Factual Titles

LONDON, January 10: Via a deal between BBC Worldwide
Australasia and TVNZ, more than 40 hours of drama, natural history and factual
titles will air on New Zealand’s TV ONE and TV2 this year.

The package deal is led by the dramas Torchwood and Primeval along with the natural history series Galapagos. Torchwood is a 13×50-minute series produced with the CBC about a team of alien
investigators. Impossible Pictures produced the 6×50-minute Primeval, for ITV, ProSieben and M6. And the 3×50-minute Galapagos is a product of the BBC’s Natural History Unit and
National Geographic.

“Torchwood and Primeval are both groundbreaking, action-packed shows
representing a new direction in U.K. drama that is ideally suited to the
innovative and exciting channel offering of TV2,” said Lisa Clements, the VP of
program acquisitions at TVNZ. “I am also pleased to have acquired Galapagos, a real programming milestone in its cinematic
treatment of the natural history genre. This visually stunning factual series
is a perfect fit with the environment of TV ONE.”

The deal also encompasses Simon
Schama’s The Power of Art, the 6×50-minute Ancient
Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire, a
co-production with ZDF and the Discovery Channel; and the 8-part The
Innocence Project, a new drama from Paul
Abbott’s Tightrope North productions for the BBC and BBC America.