TBI Weekly: new faces at Fremantle

FremantleMedia’s unscripted team in London will soon have a very different look, with Liam Humphreys making a raft of changes as Thames chief Richard Holloway exits.

Humphreys, Fremantle UK’s CEO of unscripted (pictured), had decided to re-merge powerhouse production units Thames and Talkback, with Amelia Brown and Leon Wilson now running the united team.

Execs from Lime Pictures and Betty are also joining, with various others promoted, and Lucas Green moving to Banijay Group as head of content.

The changes are all part of former Channel 4 exec Humphreys’ plan to create “scaled-up factual entertainment”. Seeing as Thames already produces Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor, how big does he believe Fremantle’s programming can get?

Also in the news…

Entertainment One Television is taking Armoza Formats show Sex Tape into the US

Al Jazeera and BBC Arabic were among the MENA buyers tapping UK-based sales house TVF International for doc programming

BBC Worldwide quiz format Mastermind is headed to Russia, where BIZ Media is creating a version for Rossiya Kultura

German trio CCC Filmkunst, MZ-Film and ZDF Enterprises are co-developing a thriller drama based on Veit Etzold’s novel series Final Cut

Drama producer Elaine Collins signed a development deal with STV Productions in Scotland

A number of Russian networks bought Xilam’s preschool toons Oggy & the Cockroaches and Zig & Shark

Sweden’s TV4 bought more than 600 hours of unscripted programming from distributor Orange Smarty

Kvartal 95’s Ukrainian comedy Servant of the People is to be remade for South Korea’s HQ Plus, with Greece’s Star Channel and French prodco Elephant also taking the scripts from Eccho Rights

Russian network CTC Love bought live-action series Heidi Bienvenida from Italy’s Mondo TV

Awesome Media & Entertainment and Welsh studio Cloth Cat Animation to co-develop book propert Stomp School for TV through a deal Industry Media

OTT service Fox+ has launched in Taiwan through Chunghwa Telecom

AXN Central Europe bought Newen Distribution’s police series Candice Renoir

Investigation Discovery hired Erica Diaz-Gant from Oxygen Media and Brent Hatherill is promoted to senior director

A deal with Amazon Prime Video for distribution of kids show Annedroids in nine additional territories means the Sinking Ship Entertainment show has now sold in every territory in the world

Russia pay TV channel Mama TV and VOD service ivi.ru have acquired Hoho Rights’ Cloudbabies through local distributor X-Media

Super RTL and Cartoonito in Italy are the first buyers of Justin Time’s third season, which Jetpack Distribution sells

Nickelodeon UK has commissioned CC-Lab to produce a 1x60mins special from Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s Slimefest

Martin Clunes will star in a new ITV drama, Manhunt, which is from Buffalo Pictures

NBCUniversal International Formats will see its edding format Wedlocked remade in Germany and Serbia, for RTL II and PRVA respectively

MIPCOM round up

APC Kids from France has acquired the Ketnet-commissioned kids series Fox & Hare for distribution

France’s Kabo International secured distribution rights to hospital doc series On Duty 27/7 and crime show Solved! Forensic Police Files from Canada’s Avanti Ciné Vidéo

DCD Rights’ drama launches at MIPCOM, Stan’s Romper Stomper and legal drama Striking Out, has secured presales across the world

Fox Networks Group Content Distributionis bringing nearly 70 new titles to Cannes, including first FNG Europe & Africa drama Deep State

Homicide: Hours to Kill and Rediscovering T-Rex are among top new titles on Cineflix Rights’ slate for MIPCOM

This week’s top TBI stories

Ex-BBC Worldwide chief joins Mitú
In-demand kids chart reveals Europe’s top shows
Richard Holloway exits Fremantle ahead of its rejig
Netflix hires Melissa Cobb from DreamWorks Animation
A+E’s Christian Drobnyk has joined Nat Geo