ITV America’s Red Bandit Media Looks to Make Its Mark

TV Real talks to Helga Eike, president of Red Bandit Media, about the new ITV America production company.

Last month, ITV America unveiled a new venture with veteran producer Helga Eike: Red Bandit Media. The outfit is now part of ITV America’s portfolio, alongside Leftfield Entertainment and ITV Entertainment, as well as Thinkfactory Media, High Noon Entertainment, DiGa and Gurney Productions.

Eike, who serves as president of Red Bandit, was previously the senior VP of development at Endemol Shine North America’s Authentic Entertainment. She has developed programming for nearly every U.S. cable network and has a long list of credits to her name in the unscripted genre, including Toddlers & Tiaras, Ace of Cakes, Flipping Out, The Best Thing I Ever Ate and Auction Kings. For her, the launch of Red Bandit was a welcome return to her roots.

“Before I was a development executive I had spent ten years out in the field creating, developing and producing shows,” Eike explains. “I always knew that I wanted to go back to it. I love making shows! I love having an idea, executing it and then bringing it home. It’s something I’ve always had a passion for, and I wanted to do that again.”

After departing Authentic, Eike had spent a lot of time meeting with different companies about pod deals. When she met Stephanie Angelides, who runs Riot Creative for Leftfield Entertainment, and Brent Montgomery, Leftfield founder who is now the head of ITV America, she knew that she had found the right partners.

“Our business is changing,” says Eike. “The development cycle is becoming longer and longer for any show. Back in the day you could fall over yourself and sell a show. Now it takes at least six months to go from an idea to an actual pilot or series green light. For a start-up that means there’s a lot of cash that you have to lay out to even get through the first six months. Worrying about the bottom line is death to the development process, in my opinion. So having this kind of partnership allows me the freedom to be completely creative and gives me a little bit more of a runway to get the first few shows off the ground.”

In regard to its programming focus, Red Bandit plans to cover a wide swath of factual genres. Eike says that what’s most important for the company, more so than specific genres, is producing premium content.

“I really want to reinvent the paranormal space; I have a paranormal psychic show that I’m really excited about,” Eike elaborates. “We have a couple of food shows that we’re out pitching right now that we’ve had some success with. I’m interested in stories where people have genuine emotion and emotional investment in the storytelling. But it needs to be premium across the board. I want to do shows that my kids are proud of, that I’m proud of. At the end of the day I want to look back and say, Damn, those are good shows! [Laughs.]”

Eike believes that what buyers are looking for right now is programming that can cut through the clutter, and her partnership with ITV America will help to accomplish this. “In the end it comes down to packaging,” she says. “What are the other elements that you can bring to the table: is it a celebrity EP, is it IP itself, is it access you might not have been able to get as an independent producer? The way you have to develop [programming] now is that you have to take each project and wrap it up in a nice bow for the buyers. That way it allows them to mitigate their risks and that will cut through.”