DRG Notches Up Sales for Food Shows

DRG has secured several deals for the food-themed lifestyle series Paul Hollywood’s City Bakes and John Torode’s Malaysian Adventure.

Paul Hollywood’s City Bakes sees the titular baker travel the world to sample recipes that have helped shape the culture and heritage of cities across the globe, from New York City to Paris. Hollywood then makes his own versions of the classic recipes he encounters. The first two seasons of the show, produced by Reef Television for Scripps Networks International, have both been sold to TV2 (Denmark), TV4 (Sweden), Top TV (New Zealand), TV3 (Norway) and National Geographic for its Indian feed in nine territories, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In addition, season one was recently acquired by TVB in Hong Kong.

John Torode’s Malaysian Adventure, a Cactus TV production for UKTV, sees the titular chef travel to Malaysia to explore its complex cooking culture and citizens. When Torode returns to the U.K., he applies what he has learned on his travels and creates classic Malaysian dishes with his own twist. The series was recently acquired by Foxtel Australia, Discovery Networks (New Zealand), Truecorp (Thailand), AMC Networks (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova, Hungary), National Geographic (Asia, Africa, the Middle East) and Matkanalen (Food Channel in Norway). In addition, the show was licensed to Little Dot Studios for ancillary territories and SVOD platform iflix for its subscribers across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Russia and CIS.

Elin Thomas, the executive VP of sales at DRG, commented, “Food and travel—especially with big-name chefs as presenters—is proving a winning combination for broadcasters looking for great lifestyle programming and we are delighted to have two such excellent titles as Paul Hollywood’s City Bakes and John Torode’s Malaysian Adventure in our catalog. These new sales add to our ongoing success with other programming fronted by leading chefs, including Heston Blumenthal, Matt Tebbutt and Michel Roux Jr., as well as fascinating food titles such as the long-running Choccywoccydoodah. As this section of the DRG catalog develops, I am pleased to say that we are fast becoming a go-to distributor for top-quality and entertaining food-related content.”