Friday round-up: Latest news, deals & hires

Friday, 11.11am: BBC’s Kate Phillips to cover Moore role on interim basis

Charlotte Moore’s number two Kate Phillips is to cover the chief content officer role on a temporary basis, following the news of Moore’s shock departure.

Director general Tim Davie today informed staff of the interim appointment, which begins with immediate effect. Moore will work closely with Phillips over the coming weeks to ensure a seamless transition for the content division, he said.

Davie also revealed that the recruitment process for Moore’s permanent replacement has begun.

Friday, 10.30am: BBCS Productions COO tees up departure

The chief operating officer of BBC Studios Productions Martha Brass is stepping down to concentrate on her non-executive director roles in the world of golf, Broadcast can reveal.

Brass was made chief operating officer and a member of the executive committee in September 2021, leaving French producer/distributor Newen Group, where she was director of international operations.

Outside of BBC Studios Productions, she is chair of governing body England Golf and non-executive director of the PGA European Tour, anong other roles in the golf world. A former senior exec at Endemol Shine Group, Brass will step down in the summer. Read more

Friday, 9.55am: Sora launches in UK, Europe

US-based Open AI has made its video generation tool Sora available in the UK and Europe.

Sora allows users to produce videos by typing in prompts and will be available to UK users who pay for Open AI’s ChatGPT service.

The roll-out comes as governments around the world struggle to work out how to regulate the tech. In the UK, a government-backed proposal that could allow AI firms to train models using copyroighted work has caused industry consternation.

Friday, 9.10am: TGC Global lands Swedish, Nigerian format deals

LA-based TGC Global Entertainment (TGC GE) has closed format acquisition deals with Swedish public broadcaster SVT and Bafot Studios in Nigeria.

Cecilia Ingebrigtsen, TGC GE’s sales and acquisitions agent for Europe and the Nordics, has licensed the worldwide rights to three of SVT’s latest formats: The Lost Games, Immigrants for Swedes and Smash the Wall. In a separate deal, TGC GE has also signed a format representation deal with Lagos-based production company Bafot Studios for The Big Family Dream.

The Lost Games revisits 12 defunct Olympic sports and sees teams made up of sporting stars and entertainers competing across three disciplines, while wearing historically appropriate sportswear.

Quiz show Immigrants sees three native-born Swedes taking part in a hilarious true-or-false guessing game about Swedish life hosted by culturally diverse celebrities, while SVT’s Smash the Wall is a “David-and-Goliath quiz in which heroic contestants challenge a ‘wall’ of five celebrities.”

Bafot Studios’ The Big Family Dream is into its third season on the Africa Magic Family platform and NTA Nigeria. The format follows 16 families as they go head-to-head to see who can save the most and win a life-changing prize.

Friday, 9am: Off The Fence strikes journalist pact

Off The Fence has entered into a development deal with Emmy Award-winning US journalists Gloria Gomez and Robin Carter.

The pact will see OTF co-develop and produce new true-crime series based on the intelligence, access and contacts amassed by Gomez and Carter during their careers as investigative journalists on the US domestic beat.

The first project to come out of the new partnership is Love & Death Row: The Rosalie Bolin Story, a true-crime series based by Gomez and Carter’s investigation into the case ofOscar Ray Bolin, who was convicted of the murder of three women in Florida. Rosalie Martinez, a paralegal married to a prominent defence attorney, met Bolin in 1995 and subsequently left husband and four daughters, resigned from the public defender’s office and embarked on an intense relationship with Bolin, which only ended when he was executed in 2016.