News round-up: Yesterday visits ‘Retro Electro Workshop’; VOYO Bulgaria drama deals; Dandelooo takes’ Super Heroes of Nature’ rights

Retro Electro Workshop

Yesterday visits ‘Retro Electro Workshop’

UKTV’s factual channel Yesterday has commissioned a new UKTV original series, Retro Electro Workshop a documentary series about the dying art of repairing electronics.

The 10 x 60-minute series is produced by Hall of Mirrors and fronted by super-fixer Rob Howard, one of the UK’s last remaining full-time repair men of retro-electronic products

At one time, Britain had an electronics repairer on every street corner. From the 1930s to the 1980s, electronic gadgets were built to be repaired and to last a lifetime. Whether it’s a classic American jukebox, a retro pinball machine, a boombox or a vintage radio, super-fixer Rob Howard and his network of experts and enthusiasts are ready to find, fix, restore and revive “anything old with a plug on it”.

Yesterday’s channel director, Gerald Casey, said:“We’re delighted to bring Retro Electro Workshop to Yesterday. I’m sure our viewers will be fascinated to see Rob and his team bringing these timeless electronic machines back to life.”

Civil Servant

VOYO Bulgaria drama deals

VOYO Bulgaria, the bTV Media Group-owned digital platform has acquired the SVOD rights to crime thriller Rats, spy series Civil Servant and romantic drama Secrets Of The Grapevine, following a deal with distributor GoQuest Media.

Produced by Heaven’s Gate, Rats (6 x 55-minutes) is set in the evolving world of the Czech-Vietnamese meth syndicates led by an immigrant mafia, funded by cryptocurrency, and monitored by the DEA, who must change their traditional tactics to adapt to the new order.

Telekom Srbija and Film Danas’ Civil Servant (36 x 50-minutes) follows a young, ambitious Serbian Secret Service (BIA) agent, Lazar Stanojević as he negotiates the rules of the international spy game in the modern world.  He quickly learns that all is not what it seems, and he is left fighting the distrust that he has for everything he thought to be true.

Secrets of the Grapevine (74 x 50-minutes) is a romantic drama produced by MetRo Productions that tells the history of two wine-growing families – the Tomovics and Smiljanics.

The Super Heroes Of Nature

Dandelooo takes ‘Super Heroes of Nature’ rights

French animation production and distribution company Dandelooo has acquired exclusive worldwide distribution rights to hybrid 2D animation series The Super Heroes Of Nature.

The deal was struck a deal with co-producers Moonworks Productions and Amopix Studios for the series, which is targeted at kids aged 4 to 10 and families.

Written by Charlotte Schmidt, Emmanuelle Pouydebat and Nicolas Bazeille, The Super Heroes of Nature (30 x 3-minutes) offers a playful introduction to biology and each episode is built around an animal or an organism and its environment, approaching a particular biological notion such as animal intelligence, social behaviours, reproduction, and the roles of the cells or the immune system.  By relying on accessible scientific information and sometimes surprising and unpublished discoveries made by international researchers, the series aims to foster understanding and contribute to changing the way we look at life.

Set for delivery in December 2023, The Super Heroes Of Nature has already been pre-sold to TV5 Monde, RTS, Télé-Québec, Arte Editions, Universcience, Le Vaisseau and Noozy.

Only Distrib strikes European deals

Broadcasters in Croatia, Spain and Portugal have acquired a range of unscripted content, following deals with French distributor Only Distrib.

Croatian pubcaster HRT licensed a package of 70 hours including the travel series Green Tourism (7 x 52-minutes), which highlights sustainable and design hotels around the world; travel and garden series Riding Through France (30 x 52-minutes) and Fabulous Designs (8 x 52-minutes), which tours the world to find the greatest architectures.

Spanish broadcaster AMC Networks International Southern Europe licensed 20 hours of food content with series including Don’t Tell the Chef and Amazon Taste, while Dreamia in Portugal also acquired Amazon Taste as well as Fabulous Designs for their pay channel Casa e Cozinha.