News round-up: Fulwell hires RDF duo; Prime Video Mexico buys from Kanal D; Fremantle dubs in MENA

The Kardashians

Fulwell hires RDF duo

UK & US The Kardashians prodcucer Fulwell 73 Productions has appointed RDF Media execs Rachel Arnold and Jon Green as creative directors of UK formats.

The duo, who jointly led the creative team at Banijay-backed RDF, will join in February, reporting to CEO Johnny Moore.

Arnold and Green previously founded Definitely, joining RDF Television in 2021, while over the course of their careers they have worked on title including Love Island and Junior Doctors.

“Rachel and Jon are key appointments as Fulwell 73 enters a new era of expansion,” said Fulwell 73 co-founder Leo Pearlman.

Prime Video Mexico buys from Kanal D

Kanal D Drama has been added to Prime Video Channels in Mexico.

Prime Video members in Mexico now have access to 3,000 hours of Turkish series fully dubbed into Spanish, including titles such as Amor en Blanco y Negro, Más Allá de las Nubes, Amor y Travesuras, Agentes Implicados and Hekimoglu.

“With this agreement, our large library of exclusive Turkish series in Spanish will strengthen the offer of Prime Video content in Mexico, while we enter a key market for us,” said Carlos Fernández, CEO of Thema America. “With this entertainment offer we seek to exponentially grow our audience and presence in Mexico, a country that is the trendsetter in the region in terms of content consumption on digital platforms.”

The X Factor

Fremantle subs in MENA

Fremantle has struck a two-year partnership with UK artificial intelligence start-up, Papercup, to localise its talent show content into Arabic.

Formats including Idols, Got Talent, and The X Factor – will be available on Talent World. The YouTube channel, which will be known locally as عالم المواهب, will use Papercup’s AI technology to automatically translate and dub Fremantle video content into Arabic, in a move that aims to reach “millions of new viewers across the Arab world” over the two-year partnership.

Robert Cocker, head of social and digital platforms, Fremantle, said: “Our talent shows are loved by audiences all over the world, and we are delighted that this partnership with Papercup will allow us to bring our content to even more fans. With over 216m YouTube subscribers and 182Bn views, Fremantle has an incredible track record in building engaged audiences, and we are excited to see how Talent World will grow.”

SkyShowtime sets CEE expansion

Yellowstone

NBCUniversal and Paramount’s joint venture streamer SkyShowtime has set the dates for its next roll-out phase, this time in eight markets across Central and Eastern Europe.

The streamer will launch 14 February in Albania, Czechia, Hungary, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, taking the total number of live markets to 20.

Content included ranges from theatrical films from Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures, as well as shows from Nickelodeon, DreamWorks Animation, Paramount+, Showtime, Sky Studios and Peacock.

It will also feature local originals such as Czech production The Winner and Polish show Warszawianka, which were both picked up from HBO Max earlier this month.

US series ranging from Yellowstone and its spin-offs, 1883 and 1923, will be among the thousands of hours on offer, as well The Rising and American Gigolo, the latter of which was recently cancelled.