Sky taking True North shows to MIPTV

Sky Vision will be taking shows from True North to market at MIPTV, having bought a majority stake in the UK indie earlier this year.

Sky took control of Leeds-based True North, which is behind programmes including MTV’s Teen Mom UK, CBBC’s Junior Vets and Channel 4’s A New Life in the Sun, in January.

True North founders Jess Fowle (left) and Andrew Sheldon will remain with the prodco following the investment, as will managing director Marc Allen and executive producer Fiona O’Sullivan, who runs the firm’s Manchester base.

The deal saw minority shareholder Channel 4 cash out, having invested in the indie through its Growth Fund.

At MIPTV, Sky Vision will have five True North titles including GroupM-coproduced property development series Climbing the Property Ladder and First Day At Big School, a one-off documentary following 4-year-olds on their first day at school. Both were for Channel 5 in the UK.

There will also be More4’s Park Life, an ob-doc series set in the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales. For the main Channel 4 net there will be Mystery of the Man on the Moor, a one-off doc about an unknown man found dead on open land with no ID and no obvious cause of death.

BBC One 15x60mins series A1: Highway Patrol will also be on the Sky Vision slate. The series follows events along Britain’s longest road.

“The distribution team at Sky Vision is really excited about our new relationship with True North and it’s great that we can kick it off with such a great catalogue of new programmes,” said Barnaby Shingleton, director of entertainment and factual, Sky Vision (right).

“True North has a fantastic reputation for producing strong factual singles and series, and we’ll be working closely together to ensure that their content reaches the widest audience possible.”

Marc Allen, managing director, True North, said: “It’s great to get our relationship with Sky Vision off to such a strong start with these titles. Big series and high quality single films have always been in the DNA of True North and so this is a perfect slate to set the tone for our collaboration going forward.”