UKTV to coproduce series with US producer

British multichannel operator UKTV has acquired and will coproduce a twelve-part paranormal-themed series from New York-based producer MY Entertainment.

Help! My House is Haunted comes from Zak Bagans, who is creator and host of long-running Travel Channel series Ghost Adventures. UK-based Back2Back Productions is a coproducer.

Bagans and David Notman-Watt are executive producer for Back2Back and Michael Yudin (pictured) does the same for MY, with international distribution rights awarded to Alfred Haber Television.

UKTV, owned by BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks International, ordered gameshow Go 8-Bit from another New York-based producer, DLT Entertainment last year.

UKTV will play Help! on pay TV channel Really early next year. It will follow an expert team of international investigators, who look into incidences of paranormal activity based on case files families present to them.

Emma Sparks, UKTV’s acquisitions and coproduction manager, and Really general manager Luke Hales ordered the show.

For MY, the deal comes as part of a concerted push into international production and format development, and following an exclusive development and production deal with Bagans. “We launched two development initiatives over the past few years: a global strategy to co-develop and sell programming not just in the US, but around the world – and a partnership with the incredibly talented and prolific Zak Bagans,” said Yudin.

“Our viewers love Zak so we’re thrilled to have another ‘Zak Bagans’ show exclusive to Really,” said Sparks. “I am delighted to be working with Michael, Zak and David on this brand new series, [and] MY Entertainment are leaders in the paranormal genre so we know we’ll have a hit series and it’s great that the team will be coming over to the UK to investigate the paranormal activity in our family homes.”