Monday round-up: Latest news, deals & hires

FilmRise lands Bloomberg deal for Prime 

New York City-based producer and streaming network FilmRise has agreed a deal to manage and distribute Bloomberg originals on Amazon Prime Channels.

The deal includes 18 docu-style series - 11 that will become available via the platform in Q2 and seven new series to be released throughout 2025 - that cover talent and topics at the intersection of business and culture.

Shows include Optimist’s Guide to the Planet, The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Circuit with Emily Chang. The seven newly produced series will premiere throughout 2025, tackling topics from technology and sustainability, to investigative journalism and space exploration.

 

France’s TF1 enters Sea Battle 

TF1 in France has picked up rights to new gameshow format, Sea Battle.

The show has been created by DreamSpark’s Moe Bennani and is being co-produced with Satisfaction Group.

It sees teams answering quiz questions, with correct answers allowing members to attempt to sink competitor boats, represented by fellow contestants on a giant studio board.

France to remake Beta, ARD drama 

German drama 30 Days of Lust is to be remade in France, following a deal with distributor Beta Film.

The show, which has become a hit on ARD’s streaming service in Germany, is being remade in France by Black Sheep Films (The Rose Family) and will be adapted and directed by Émilie Noblet (Loulou).

The 8 x 30-minute series follows former two high school sweethearts who put their long-term relationship to the test by agreeing to an experiment in which they can have sex with whoever they want for 30 days. The original was produced by Trimafilm in co-production with SWR, with Bartosz Grudziecki (The Wall) and Pia Hellenthal (Searching Eva) sharing writing and directing credits. 

Nine, WTFN in Oz launch FAST channel

Australian producer WTFN has agreed a deal with locla broadcaster Nine create a new FAST channel.

Real Emergency is being launched via WTFN’s broadcast distribution arm, Fred Media, and will feature two of Nine’s long-running returning series, Paramedics (7 seasons, 75 eps) and Emergency (5 seasons, 50 eps).

Both shows, which are produced by WTFN, will run across the channel’s schedule, with the service launching on 9Now in Australia in Q2. It will also be distributed to major FAST platforms worldwide.

Radar, WTFN’s digital distribution arm, will also roll out Real Emergency VOD channels across YouTube, Facebook and other social video platforms.

CBBC dives into Rainbow shows

Rainbow, the independent Italian entertainment group led by Iginio Straffi, has sold new action series Gormiti - The New Era (20 x 22 minutes) to CBBC and iPlayer in the UK.

The show, which will make its UK debut this spring, is a remake of the adventure franchise Gormiti and follows the adventures of four young heroes from Earth who are called to save the fantasy realm of Gorm – and Earth itself – from war and destruction.

The series has been produced with Giochi Preziosi, who created the original intellectual property in 2005, distributing it to over 50 countries worldwide. It has already launched in Spain on Clan, in France on Gulli, in Italy on Rai 2, Rai Gulp and Rai Play, and in Greece on Nickelodeon.

Rainbow recently gained investment from TEC Movie, an independent vehicle established as part of The Equity Club, which will see around €90m (£75m) being invested into the company to bolster international expansion of brands such as Winx Club and Gormiti.

Rare pilot order for Netflix sitcom 

Netflix has made what is thought to be only its second-ever pilot order, this time for a show that would act as a sequel to 1980’s sitcom, A Different World.

The one-off, which is being written by Felicia Pride, is based on the NBC show that ran for six series between 1987 and 1993. A Different World was itself a spin-off from The Cosby Show and followed the life of students at a fictional US college in Virginia.

Netflix has only once previously used a pilot order model, back in 2023 for comedy Little Sky, which did not make it to series. US reports suggest the model is being used on the Different World sequel to test chemistry and does not reflect a shift in strategy. 

Sky dips into digital with YouTube shorts

UK pay TV operator Sky has ordered its debut tranche of digital short-form programming including a dating format, a celebrity workout social experiment and a scripted comedy-cum-ob doc.

The four series - Stevo the Madman: The Mad House, Kyrah Gray: Gagging for it and Andrew Mensah: Media Trained - will each launch on Sky’s YouTube channel in April and May.

Commissioned by Phil Edgar-Jones, executive director, unscripted originals at Sky, alongside commissioning editor Dwayne Eaton, the titles will showcase some of the UK’s “freshest and exciting up-and-coming comedy talent” and bringing new talent into the Sky ecosystem.