ITV Studios buys Lingo Pictures, marking first Australian drama label

The Secrets She Keeps

ITV Studios (ITVS) has expanded its scripted footprint into Australia by acquiring a majority stake in The Secrets She Keeps prodco, Lingo Pictures.

The Sydney-based outfit is behind Foxtel and Sky’s drama Upright, starring Tim Minchin and Milly Alcock, as well as BBC One’s Queen Of Oz, The Messenger for the ABC, and Prosper for Aussie streamer Stan and Lionsgate.

Helen Bowden & Jason Stephens

Founders Helen Bowden and Jason Stephens will continue to head up the outfit, which will fall under ITVS’s international production arm MD, Lisa Perrin.

Bowden previously founded Matchbox Pictures, which was sold to NBCUniversal in 2014, while Stephens was head of development and then creative director at Fremantle Australia.

ITVS will handle international distribution for all new Lingo Pictures series.

Perrin said: “[Bowden and Stephens]’s talent for producing high quality scripted content is clear and they are well positioned to take even more advantage of the unprecedented demand for English language drama as part of our global network of production companies.”

Lingo has also been behind gothic drama Lambs Of God, On The Ropes and Wake In Fright, a thriller based on Kenneth Cook’s 1961 novel of the same name.

ITVS, whose parent ITV has reportedly explored spinning off the production-distribution division, has been expanding its scripted efforts of late, bringing Ben Stephenson’s nascent label, Poison Pen Studios, into the group earlier this year. It has also backed Nicola Shindler’s Quay Street Productions, and also houses Dominic Treadwell Collins-founded outfit Happy Prince.

Other scripted labels in the group include Patrick Spence and David P. Davis’s 5Acts, Cattleya Producciones, Windlight Pictures, Tomorrow Studios, and Bedrock Entertainment.