BBC Worldwide Channels has secured a number of entertainment and factual entertainment titles for its channels in Poland, Africa and the Nordic region, featuring some of the best known faces on international television.
Bun Scrase-Dickins, VP Acquisitions, BBC Worldwide Channels said, "We work hard to ensure a constant stream of high quality programmes for our viewers, and it's particularly exciting to see these titles making their international debuts on our channels."
Acquired for Africa is acclaimed new comedy series Episodes starring Matt Le Blanc (Friends), Tamsin Greig (Friday Night Dinner, Tamara Drewe) and Stephen Mangan (Free Agents, Green Wing). The seven part series, distributed by Hat Trick International, tells the story of a happily married English couple, Sean and Beverly Lincoln, who move to Los Angeles to remake their hit show for an American audience – with disastrous results.
Episodes airs on BBC Entertainment from August 2011.
For Africa and Poland, BBC Worldwide Channels has bought the series Dating in the Dark from Talpa Media. In July 2011, BBC Entertainment will premiere the UK version of this hit international format, hosted by Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding. The series sees three couples enter a light-proof house where they have to get to know each other and form bonds without knowing what the other looks like.
For the Nordic region, BBC Worldwide Channels has also picked up ten titles from DRG starring master psychological illusionist Derren Brown. The slate includes the one-off specials Enigma, The Heist, Séance, Messiah, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Russian Roulette Re-Loaded, The System and the Mind Control series. BBC Entertainment will also be showing all three series of the Trick of the Mind and series one and two of Trick or Treat.
All the titles are set air from August 2011.
The deals were brokered by Melanie Owen and Richard Acton, Acquisitions Managers, BBC Worldwide Channels.