Monday round-up: Latest news, deals & hires

BBC Studios alum lands at Nielsen

BBC Studios former general manager in Australia and New Zealand has re-emerged at audience measurement firm Nielsen.

Fiona Lang stepped down from BBCS in September and has now said she has been appointed as managing director of television audience measurement for Nielsen in Australia.

Lang, who confirmed the news on LinkedIn, was among a series of execs to leave BBCS’s ANZ operations, with local scripted chief Warren Clarke exiting in October.

SBS, RTL, AMC among APC deals 

APC Studios’ distributor About Premium Content (APC) has struck a raft of sales for its supernatural thriller Icebreaker, as well as crime dramas Boglands and The Eclipse.

Finnish-language Icebreaker (6 x 45 minutes) has been sold to SBS (Australia), RTL (Germany), Canal+ Group’s Ale Kino+ (Poland) and Walter Presents (UK), and has already pre-sold to AMC Networks International Southern Europe (Spain & Portugal).

Produced by Helsinki-filmi for Elisa Viihde, the series is created and written by showrunner Mia Ylönen. Elisa Viihde’s premiere is planned this autumn.

Boglands (6 x 45 minutes), an Irish-language crime drama produced by Fíbín Films for BBC Northern Ireland and TG4, has been sold to Acorn TV (US, Australia, New Zealand), ARTE (France & Germany), Filmin (Spain), RTP (Portugal), Canal+ Group’s Ale Kino+ (Poland) and PickBox (Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bulgaria). 

French-language The Eclipse (6 x 45 minutes), commissioned by France Télévisions and produced by Carma Films, has also been picked up by Acorn TV (North America, Australia, New Zealand), RTBF (Belgium), Walter Presents (UK/Ireland), RTP (Portugal), TVP (Poland), TG4 (Ireland) and blue TV’s platform blue Play (Switzerland). It was created and written by Cécile Lorne, Hélène Duchateau and Baptiste Filleul.

Streamers sweep Bafta Craft Awards

The streamers had a strong showing at the Bafta Craft Awards in the UK last night, with Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, Disney+’s Rivals and Apple TV+’s Slow Horses winning two gongs apiece.

The ceremony, which took place at The Brewery in London and is a precursor to the main awards next month, celebrated the achievements of behind-the-scenes television talent.

Baby Reindeer writer and star Richard Gadd won the prize for writer – drama category, while the Netflix hit also landed a gong for Weronika Tofilska for director – fiction.

Elsewhere, Jill Sweeney, Abi Brotherton, Natalie Allan, Tifanny Pierre, Franziska Roesslhuber and Martine Watkins won the make-up and hair category for their work on Disney+ UK original Rivals, while Dominic Hyman won for production design on the Happy Prince-produced series.

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