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Independent producer Expectation, the London-based outfit behind Amazon’s breakout hit Clarkson’s Farm, has signed a development alliance with David Flynn’s creative studio Plegazoid to generate new entertainment formats for UK broadcasters and streamers.

Under the pact, announced on 30 June, Flynn will embed with Expectation’s entertainment unit to co-create game-show and reality IP that the two companies will coproduce. “David has created some of the most successful game shows ever made … we are elated to be working together on his next dazzling array of hit shows,” said Expectation’s creative director of entertainment Ben Wicks. Flynn called the West London label “a really creative and talented bunch” whose tastes align with his ambition to build formats that “cut through in the UK and travel internationally.”

Plegazoid, launched by the former Endemol UK chief in 2023, is already behind ITV’s forthcoming daytime quiz Time Is Money, co-produced with South...

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The Chelsea Detective is a British mystery crime drama series created by Peter Fincham. The Acorn TV series is set in Chelsea, London, and it revolves around Detective Inspector Max Arnold and his partner as they investigate various murder cases to put away dangerous criminals. The Chelsea Detective stars Adrian Scarborough, Sonita Henry, Vanessa Emme, Peter Bankole, and Lucy Phelps. So, if you loved the case-of-the-week style storytelling, engaging murder mysteries, and compelling characters in The Chelsea Detective, here are some similar shows you should check out next.

Suspects Credit – Channel 5

Suspects is a British crime drama series created by Darren Fairhurst, Steve Hughes, and Paul Marquess. The Channel 5 series is set in London, and it revolves around police detectives as they investigate various controversial cases ranging from murders to child abuse. Suspects stars Damien Molony, Clare-Hope Ashitey,...

Enthusiasts and industry insiders alike will be getting an exclusive peek behind the curtain of the world of television with the launch of Insiders: The TV Podcast, a brand-new ten-episode series from Expectation TV.

It will be hosted by two of the most influential figures in British television, Peter Fincham and Jimmy Mulville.

Peter Fincham joined TalkBack in 1985 and became Managing Director the following year. He executive produced many of their biggest shows including The Day Today (BBC Two), Brass Eye(Channel 4), I’m Alan Partridge (BBC Two), Never Mind The Buzzcocks (BBC Two), Smack The Pony (Channel 4), Da Ali G Show (Channel 4). TalkBack enjoyed many successes in other genres including dramas such as The Lost Prince (BBC One) and Sword of Honour (Channel 4) and factual/factual entertainment programmes including Grand Designs (Channel 4) and The Apprentice(BBC One).

In 2000 TalkBack was sold to Fremantle and two years later Peter became CEO of TalkBack Thames,...

Two of the UK’s most well-known names in TV production arm making a podcast about the biz.

Peter Fincham and Jimmy Mulville will front ten-part series Insiders: The TV Podcast, in which they promise to take “enthusiast and industry insiders alike” an “exclusive peek behind the curtain of the world of television.” Fincham’s indie, Expectation, and Mulville’s Hat Trick Productions are making the show.

Each week, the pair, who bills themselves as “fierce friends and former rival TV bosses,” will deliver “personal stories, insider anecdotes and expert analysis on trends, triumphs and controversies that have shaped television over the decades and today.”

Fincham has been a commissioner and producer for the likes of Talkback throughout a four decade-year career. He began at Talkback in 1985, becoming its Managing Director a year later and exec producing the likes of The Day Today, I’m Alan Partridge and Never Mind the Buzzcocks for BBC Two,...

Prime Video has revealed that Clarkson’s Farm will return to Prime Video on May 23 with a new first look at the highly anticipated fourth season. The first four episodes will launch exclusively on Prime Video on May 23, with two additional episodes released a week later on May 30, followed by the final two on June 6.

Join Jeremy and his team as they navigate new challenges, ambitious projects, and hilarious moments at Diddly Squat Farm. After rounding off series three with the Diddly Squat gang toasting a tumultuous year, we return a few months later to find that life on the farm has changed.

Kaleb is on a nationwide tour, Lisa is working on a new product line, and Jeremy is left to run the farm alone. In Kaleb’s absence, Jeremy must keep Diddly on track and comes up with an idea.

Thwarted in his attempts to open a Farm to Fork restaurant,...

On stage at British television’s biggest annual gathering in 2023, Paramount UK content chief Ben Frow recounted the story of his resignation with signature flamboyance. Frow told Edinburgh TV Festival delegates he was suffering from gnawing burnout that felt as if he were being “pecked alive.” Quitting granted him paradoxical relief: it soothed his anxiety to the point where he felt able to later withdraw his resignation.

Sixteen months on from his confession, Frow remains in charge of Channel 5, the jewel in the crown of Paramount’s UK operations. It’s a job he has done for more than 12 years, which is at least three times longer than any of his predecessors. Frow’s brush with burnout may be a personal story, but he touched on a universal issue: how long is too long in the rarefied executive roles at the top of television?

Ben Frow

Wherever you turn,...

The Chelsea Detective is set to kick off its third season next month. The British crime drama, created by Peter Fincham, will start its new season with a 2024 Christmas special and return with four regular 90-minute episodes in 2025.

Adrian Scarborough, Vanessa Emme, Sophie Stone, Lucy Phelps, Peter Bankolé, Anamaria Marinca, and Frances Barber star in the series, which follows a pair of detectives, Di Max Arnold (Scarborough) and DS Layla Walsh (Emme), as they investigate crimes in the area of West Chelsea in London.

Read More…...

The almost-cast list for the character of Michael Scott on The Office (US) is long and illustrious. In the run up to filming the remake’s pilot episode, Better Call Saul’s Bob Odenkirk was in contention for the part, as were Oscar-nominee Paul Giamatti and Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman. US comedy stars Patton Oswalt, Adam Scott, Rainn Wilson and more all were auditioned (see the evidence here), before Steve Carrell made the role undeniably his own.

Another name to add to that already starry list? Ricky Gervais.

The Office co-creator and star was quick to rubbish the idea, as he told British TV producers Peter Fincham and Jon Plowman in a 2021 episode of BBC comedy podcast What’s Funny About…, but was apparently offered the remake’s lead role in very early discussions. Gervais described getting his first phonecall from US producer Ben Silverman about a potential remake, and...

Exclusive: The Chelsea Detective is back for more sleuthing on the glamorous streets of West London.

AMC Networks’ streamer Acorn TV and Germany’s Zdf have ordered a third season of the mystery drama series set on the glamorous streets of Chelsea, with Adrian Scarborough and Vanessa Emme reprising their roles as Detective Inspector Max Arnold and Detective Sergeant Layla Walsh, respectively. A first-look image is above.

Filming has begun in and around London on a four feature-length episodes in which the duo explore murky crimes such as the tragic death of a 2000s poster, the impenetrable world of the U.S. Embassy, the splendor of Kew Gardens, a classic music academy and a climate scientist found dead in a supercar. Also new is Max embarking on couples therapy with his estranged wife Astrid (Anamaria Marinca) and Layla getting used to living in London as her partner,...

Exclusive: The race to replace Ralph Lee at the helm of BBC Studios Productions is underway, with the studio signaling its ambition by approaching some of the UK’s top unscripted executives.

Lee will step down as the CEO of BBC Studios Productions next month after a six-year stint to “pursue a new challenge” but Deadline is told that headhunter Russell Reynolds Associates is already scoping out successors.

The successful candidate will run a production unit that contributed heavily to BBC Studios’ £1.6B ($2B) content revenue last year, overseeing hits including Good Omens, Strictly Come Dancing, and David Attenborough’s natural history tentpoles.

Deadline understands that Russell Reynolds has held tentative early conversations with potential candidates including Stv Studios managing director David Mortimer, ITV Studios unscripted director Angela Jain and Karl Warner, Channel 4’s outgoing head of youth and digital.

Fatima Salaria, who previously ran The Apprentice producer Naked,...

British TV vet Samir Shah has been unveiled as the new BBC Chair, coming with a major decision on the licence fee imminent.

Shah, who runs production company Juniper TV and used to be a senior BBC News exec, has been appointed by the government several months after the resignation of Richard Sharp, who left the corporation after just two years amidst the conflict-of-interest scandal involving the facilitation of a potential loan for Boris Johnson.

Shah has been working on and off in TV for four decades and is well known in industry circles. He used to run the BBC’s political journalism shows and was a non-exec director during the ‘Crowngate’ affair involving Queen Elizabeth II, at which point he advised Director General Mark Thompson over a scandal that led to the resignation of BBC One Controller Peter Fincham. He bought Juniper in 1998 and has made shows for the likes of the BBC,...

Have You Seen? is a new TV reviews podcast that banishes the dreaded question of the Golden TV Era: “What to watch?” The podcast tackles the woes of modern TV consumption head-on, with signature charm and unbeatable knowledge. Hosts and old friends, broadcaster and writer Mariella Frostrup and TV executive Peter Fincham sift through the latest small-screen offerings, to produce a ready-made weekly watchlist for listeners.

The Chelsea Detective is a British crime drama created by Peter Fincham. The Acorn TV series focuses on the story of Di Max Arnold (Adrian Scarborough) and DS Priya Shamsie (Sonita Henry) as they solve more and more complicated criminal cases as well as lead very complicated personal lives. So, if you loved The Chelsea Detective here are some similar shows you should check out next.

Suspects (Acorn TV & Prime Video Add-On) Credit – Channel 5

Synopsis: Suspects is a fresh, very different, and absolutely cracking drama -Daily Mail (UK). With improvised dialogue and using filming techniques and a directorial approach usually associated with factual programming, this unique procedural crime drama follows D.I. Martha Bellamy and her team as they investigate hard-hitting crimes in contemporary London.

Deadwind (Netflix) Credit Yle TV2

Synopsis: A dogged detective with a complicated personal life throws herself into solving grisly murders that often mask a sinister conspiracy.

The captivating British crime drama “The Chelsea Detective” is set to make its highly-anticipated return to Acorn TV on Monday, August 28, with new episodes premiering weekly. Starring Adrian Scarborough as Detective Inspector Max Arnold, the second season of the show consists of four feature-length episodes that continue to delve into the intriguing and dark world of crime in London’s richest borough.

In this new season, Di Max Arnold partners with Detective Sergeant Layla Walsh, portrayed by Vanessa Emme. The two detectives uncover hidden killers among the glamorous art galleries and luxurious homes of Chelsea, exposing the sinister underbelly of the borough. As they navigate the glossy and stylish world, they must confront the darkness that lies beneath its surface.

Returning cast members include Sophie Stone as Chief Forensics Officer Ashley Wilton, Lucy Phelps as DC Jess Lombard, Peter Bankolé as DC Connor Pollock, Anamaria Marinca as Di Arnold’s ex-wife Astrid,...

The Brit-produced crime drama TV series “The Chelsea Detective”, created by Peter Fincham, stars Adrian Scarborough as ‘Detective Inspector Max Arnold’ and Vanessa Emme as ‘Detective Sergeant Layla Walsh’ airing new Season 2 episodes August 28, 2023 on Acorn TV:

“…London's richest borough hides a dark side that ‘Max Arnold’ (Scarborough) knows all too well. Killers lurk among the art galleries and luxury homes, and it's up to Arnold and new partner ‘Layla Walsh’ (Emme) to expose them..”

Click the images to enlarge…...

Exclusive: Peacock is developing a pilot for a raunchy social experiment format titled Sex in the Dark.

Clarkson’s Farm producer Expectation is behind the pilot, which joins a number of Peacock shows on its unscripted development slate. The pilot was filmed late last year, we understand.

The show’s logline describes Sex in the Dark as a “radical new social experiment” and centers on one single person who is blindfolded or left completely in darkness as they embark on “intimacy tests” to judge their connection, chemistry and attraction with a number of different suitors.

After each round, one suitor will be eliminated. The show culminates in a final night in complete darkness, as the singleton bed-hops with the remaining suitors to see if smell, touch, physical connection and energy is all you need to fall in love.

Amy Dallmeyer, Ben Wicks and Lucy Palmer are EPs on the series from Expectation,...

Spun Gold To “Reimagine” BAFTA Coverage

Next year’s BAFTA TV and Film Awards will be “significantly expanded and reimagined” as a new production company, Spun Gold TV, takes the reins. Co-producing alongside BAFTA, Spun Gold has replaced previous producers Done + Dusted and Whizz Kid following a tender process to make the coverage for the next two years. BAFTA said Spun Gold will work with the body to “reimagine and significantly expand the production and format of both events.” Ceremonies will be broadcast as per usual on BBC One and take place live at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Inside Dubai producer Spun Gold has made the likes of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Celebrations for ITV and the same network’s Real Full Monty concerts. BBC Entertainment Director Kalpna Patel-Knight praised the company’s “first-class reputation in making high quality, innovative and engaging content.” Elsewhere, UK PR firm Premier...

“Clarkson’s Farm,” the surprise pastoral smash hit from Amazon Prime Video, has been greenlit for a third season, with production already underway.

The show follows former “Top Gear” host Jeremy Clarkson as he re-locates from London to the English countryside and tries to run a farm (called Diddly Squat) often with disastrous results. Fortunately, his trusty farmhands Kaleb, Gerald and Charlie – as well as his wife Lisa – are there to help the man who has been dubbed “Britain’s most unlikely farmer.”

A second season of the show, featuring both familiar and new faces, is set to launch in early 2023 and will see the team deal with new animals and crops as well as an ongoing feud with the local council as Clarkson attempt to open a restaurant on the farm.

According to local news reports, West Oxfordshire district council has twice rejected Clarkson’s attempts to open an eatery at Diddly Squat,...

Exclusive: Acorn TV and Zdf mystery drama series The Chelsea Detective has a new co-lead for its second season.

Vanessa Emme has been cast opposite star Adrian Scarborough, with production now underway in and around London ahead of a 2023 return. BBC Studios-backed Expectation is the lead producer.

Emme will play Detective Sergeant Layla Walsh, who’s described as a “sharp, “diligent” officer who joins Chelsea Cid from Exeter and loves her job. While not naïve about life in London, she is billed as “an outsider and will occasionally roll her eyes at the worst excesses of Chelsea.”

Killing Eve and 1917 star Scarborough will again play Detective Inspector Max Arnold.

The second run of The Chelsea Detective will comprise four feature-length mysteries set around the glossy locales of Chelsea in West London. Themes will include the team delving into the art world, luxury retirement living, rowing,...

Former Objective MD Joins King of Sunshine

Exclusive: Paul Sandler, a former MD of Peep Show and The Cube producer Objective Media Group, has joined the entertainment indie run by former BBC commissioner Sohail Shah. Sandler joins King of Sunshine Productions as a Non-Exec Director and will help run the outfit, which has produced ITV’s Agatha & Poirot: Partners in Crime and Britain’s Favourite Detective, while recently picking up the rights to Sharna Jackson kids novel High-Rise Mystery. Sandler became Objective Productions (now Objective Media Group) MD in 2005 shortly before the outfit was acquired by All3Media and held the role for 10 years, overseeing a period of growth with shows such as hit Channel 4 cult comedy Peep Show, Derren Brown and ITV gameshow format The Cube. In 2015, he became COO of three ITV Studios-backed labels under the Cats on the Roof banner, labels that are now being wound...

Canneseries Awards: ‘The Allegation’ And ‘Mister 8’ Take Home Prizes

German drama The Allegation and Finnish offering Mister 8 won big at last night’s Canneseries Awards, each winning two of the most coveted gongs. Ferdinand von Shirach’s legal thriller The Allegation took home the Dior Grand Prize for Rtl Group and Von Shirach won Best Screenplay, while Teemu Nikki/Jani Pösö’s Mister 8 for Viaplay won Best Series and Best Performance for lead Pekka Strang. Elsewhere, the Audience Award went to Serbian crime drama Awake, while Norwegian entrants won awards in the Best Short Form Series category for Liv Mari Ulla Mortensen’s About Saturday and Izer Aliu/Anne Bjørnstad’s Countrymen in the High School Prize For Best Series. The awards rounded out the five-day festival, which has been taking place at the same time as Mipcom.

Arkham Asylum Immersive Experience

Department Studios, Inc., Myriad Entertainment and Warner Bros.

Exclusive: Expectation, the British production company behind series such as David Schwimmer comedy Intelligence and Amazon’s Clarkson’s Farm, has posted its first profit since launching in 2017.

This comes despite the Covid-19 pandemic “severely disrupting” a number of its productions.

The company, which was set up by former Endemol chief Tim Hincks and ex-ITV content chief Peter Fincham, posted a profit of £438,145 in the twelve months to 31 March 2021, a significant improvement on the £2.9M loss that it incurred in the previous year.

This profit was posted from revenues of £34.8M, a 23% increase from the prior year’s figure of £28.3M.

The directors of the company, in its financial statements to Companies House, said that they were “delighted” with the results, during what it called a “difficult” year.

“The group’s upward trajectory continues, having reached profit in its fourth year of trading as originally planned; when we signed the 2020 accounts last year,...

Amazon Prime Video has renewed Jeremy Clarkson’s farming show, Clarkson’s Farm, for a second season.

Filming is underway on Season 2, as Amazon follows the adventures of The Grand Tour star as he runs Diddly Squat Farm. He will again be joined by his team, including tractor driver Kaleb, as Clarkson aims to diversify, expanding his limited agricultural knowledge.

“Clarkson’s Farm is Jeremy’s unfiltered love letter to farming,” said Dan Grabiner, Amazon Studios’ head of UK originals. “It is that authenticity, charm and humour, combined with the farm’s fantastic characters, which have made the series such a remarkable hit with audiences.”

Clarkson’s Farm is produced by Expectation and Clarkson’s Con Dao Productions. Executive producers are Peter Fincham and Andy Wilman, while the series director is Will Yapp.

Clarkson marked the renewal with a short video:...

Exclusive: AMC Networks streamer Acorn TV has found its latest British crime series in the shape of Adrian Scarborough starrer The Chelsea Detective, which is created and co-written by Peter Fincham, the man who originally greenlit Downton Abbey for ITV.

Scarborough, a prolific English actor who has starred in Killing Eve, Gavin & Stacey, 1917, and A Very English Scandal, will take on the title role of Detective Inspector Max Arnold, who plies his trade in Chelsea, uncovering the murky underbelly of a well-heeled borough of London.

The Chelsea Detective will be co-produced by German public broadcaster Zdf, with BBC Studios-backed Expectation making the series, which consists of four feature-length episodes, each focusing on a different case.

Expectation co-founder Fincham, who was director of television at ITV during the time that Downton Abbey became a global phenomenon, created the drama. He writes an episode, while Glen Laker (Vera) and Liz Lake...

In today’s Global Bulletin, a two-parter on the BBC’s controversial 1995 interview with Princess Diana sells around the world; “Catfish U.K.” plans to premiere four episodes on MTV U.K. this spring; See-Saw Films ups Simon Gillis to COO; Wirecard scandal film being developed; and Women in Film and Television U.K. is to expand its mentoring programs for mid-career women to Scotland and Wales.

U.K. production funding and distribution agency Drive has sold two-part documentary series “The Diana Interview: Revenge of a Princess” to Channel Nine in Australia, Reelz in the U.S., TV 2 in Norway, Servus TV in Austria, Rtl Netherlands and Tvnow in Germany, to broadcast this year.

Produced by Minnow Films for U.K. broadcaster ITV, the series focuses on the controversial 1995 interview when Diana, Princess of Wales, poured her heart out on current affairs show “Panorama” to BBC journalist Martin Bashir.

Netflix is bolstering its global entertainment formats team, hiring “The Circle” exec producer Daisy Lilley to work out of its London office, Variety has confirmed.

Lilley has joined Netflix as a manager in its London-based operation, working closely with former ITV commissioner Ben Kelly.

She reports in to Sean Hancock, Netflix’s U.S.-based director of unscripted originals, and will be responsible for ordering global entertainment formats out of the U.K.

Netflix has stepped up its commissioning of entertainment formats out of the U.K., and recently enjoyed success with “Too Hot to Handle,” a reality dating competition produced by Fremantle-owned U.K. entertainment label Talkback. On May 18, Netlfix also launched “The Big Flower Fight,” produced by the U.K.’s MultiStory Media.

Netflix has also commissioned U.S., Brazilian and French versions of Studio Lambert format “The Circle,” which Lilley developed and then executive produced.

In October,...

Exclusive: Netflix is continuing its push for UK-originated entertainment formats after hiring The Circle exec producer Daisy Lilley in its non-fiction team.

Lilley has joined the streamer as a manager in its London-based division, reporting to Sean Hancock, its U.S-based director of unscripted originals. She will work closely with former ITV commissioner Ben Kelly, who Deadline revealed last year had joined in a similar role.

She will be responsible for ordering global entertainment formats out of the UK.

The hire comes as its latest UK-developed entertainment show, Too Hot To Handle, a reality dating competition produced by Fremantle’s Talkback, launched on the service last month.

Netflix’s own U.S. take on The Circle, the British format produced by Studio Lambert and Motion Content Group, launched on the service in January with Brazilian and French adaptations as well.

Lilley was one of the exec producers of The Circle for All3Media-backed Studio Lambert.

Sky has handed renewals to a slew of scripted series including David Schwimmer’s Intelligence, Robert Carlyle political drama Cobra and Joseph Gilgun’s comedy drama Brassic.

Intelligence, which launches on Sky One, has been handed a second season ahead of its first season air on February 21. Friends star Schwimmer plays a power-hungry, maverick Nsa agent who joins an inept and tactless computer analyst, played by Nick Mohammed, within the UK’s Gchq. Created and written by Mohammed, Intelligence is produced by Tim Hincks and Peter Fincham’s Expectation. The second, six-part season was renewed by Jon Mountague, Sky Studios’ Director of Comedy and Zai Bennett, Sky’s Managing Director of Content.

Schwimmer said, “I am thrilled to continue to pretend to be important to National Security.” Mohammed added, “I couldn’t be more delighted about setting off alarm bells inside Gchq all over again.”

Robert Carlyle’s political drama...

Exclusive: Channel 4 has stoked anger in the British television industry after swapping producers on its tentpole election night show without a formal competitive process.

The British broadcaster announced last month that BBC Studios-backed Expectation will co-produce its Alternative Election Night on December 12, the day Britain heads to the polls in a crunch vote that could determine the country’s future relationship with the EU.

The decision to hand Expectation the Alternative Election Night, a live election results show with an entertainment twist, meant that Endemol Shine Group outfit Zeppotron was sidelined after originally creating the format in 2010 and having produced it on three separate occasions since the turn of the decade.

Two sources told Deadline that the decision was made without a formal competitive pitching process and that Channel 4 has had to go back to Zeppotron to request key production materials to maintain the show’s consistency. Channel...

The BBC is exploring the rise of Tony Blair’s New Labour movement and the triple murder of a family in a Telford blaze as part of its latest documentary orders.

BBC Two has given a greenlight to a five-part series about former British Prime Minister Blair’s political party, which dominated the late 90s and early 2000s. New Labour (w/t), which is produced by BBC Studios, will look at how Blair and his colleagues including Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, Alastair Campbell, John Prescott took control of the Labour Party before becoming elected.

It will chart their leadership of the country through a tumultuous period of war and peace, terror and national trauma and exploring their controversial political legacy and the powerful personalities and emotional fault lines that ran through their years in charge in Britain.

It comes on the back of the success of Thatcher: A Very British Revolution.

Exclusive: The team behind Amazon’s The Grand Tour is on the brink of striking a production deal that will see them tying up with Expectation, the BBC Studios-backed production company founded by former Endemol President Tim Hincks and ex-ITV content chief Peter Fincham.

The deal is still being finalized, but Deadline has learned that Expectation will house the production of The Grand Tour as well as other projects from presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May.

We have heard that executive producer Andy Wilman and his team have already moved into Expectation’s office in Notting Hill, West London, as the final touches are applied to the agreement.

Talks have been ongoing for some time and Expectation’s chief operating officer Alexia Edwards is already the director of a company, named Grand Tour Productions, with Zoe Brewer, who is the director of production on The Grand Tour/Chump Productions.

FilmNation Entertainment and Nordic Entertainment Group (Nent Group) have appointed Kirstie Macdonald as head of the companies’ new UK-based TV joint venture.

Operating under the FilmNation brand, the company will develop, produce and finance premium scripted television content. Macdonald will act as creative director and will take up her position in November, when she will begin to assemble a team.

Macdonald joins from her role as Creative Director, Drama at Peter Fincham and Tim Hincks’ production company Expectation, where she will continue to oversee the launch of BBC series Guilt ahead of her move. Macdonald was previously at ITV Studios-owned World Productions where she worked on BBC series Line Of Duty and the Bafta-winning Channel 4 series The Fear.

The joint-venture between FilmNation and Nent Group was announced in January this year. The companies plan to leverage existing talent relationships to build a slate of TV. Nent Group will...

FilmNation's newly launched U.K. television joint venture with the Nordic Entertainment Group has found its head.

Kirstie Macdonald has been named creative director of the outfit, first announced in January, joining from Peter Fincham and Tim Hincks' production company Expectation, where she was creative director, drama.

Prior to Expectation, Macdonald worked the ITV Studios-owned World Productions (makers of hit drama Bodyguard) on shows including Line of Duty, Save Me, Outlaws and The Fear.

In her new role, Macdonald will lead the joint venture’s U.K. team and be responsible for building the company’s production slate. She will ...

The stars of British period drama Downton Abbey are set to swap their country estate for the red carpet this evening in London ahead of the release of its big-screen debut.

Nearly four years since last appearing on the ITV/PBS drama, Maggie Smith Michelle Dockery and Hugh Bonneville, as well as the rest of the Crawley family and the servants who worked for them, are returning for the Focus Features and Carnival Films movie from Julian Fellowes.

Opening on September 13 in the UK and on September 20 in North America, the film sees the household prepare for the arrival of the King and Queen.

Ahead of their arrival, Deadline spoke with Carnival Films boss Gareth Neame about the show’s conception, how it changed British television and lead to the creation of The Crown as well as the impact on his own NBCU-backed business.

How did Downton Abbey begin?...

Exclusive: Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is set for another small-screen remake with The Girl writer Gwyneth Hughes developing an adaptation with British producer Expectation.

Deadline understands that the BBC Studios-backed producer, which is run by former Endemol Shine chief Tim Hincks and ex-ITV content boss Peter Fincham, is in the early stages of developing the project.

Hughes is best known for the 2012 HBO/BBC movie The Girl, which starred Sienna Miller as Tippi Hedren and explored Alfred Hitchcock’s obsession with the actress. She also recently adapted William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair into a seven-part Olivia Cooke-fronted series for ITV and Amazon, and is currently working on two-part drama Honour starring Keeley Hawes for ITV.

Anna Karenina, first published in 1878, is a complex story with dozens of major characters. It tells the story of the eponymous lead, who has an affair with a dashing cavalry...

Something to Live For, Richard Roper’s forthcoming book about loneliness in a big city, is being adapted into a TV drama after Expectation optioned the novel.

Expectation, which is run by former Endemol boss Tim Hincks and ex-ITV content chief Peter Fincham, is now in the process of developing the adaptation via Creative Director of Drama Kirstie Macdonald.

It is the company’s latest scripted move and comes after it scored a David Schwimmer-fronted comedy, Intelligence, with Sky, and BBC drama Guilt starring Mark Bonnar.

The book is set to be published in the UK by Orion in June, while Putnam’s has acquired the book rights for the U.S. The deal was struck by Jonathan Sissons at Peters Fraser & Dunlop (Pfd) on behalf of Laura Williams at Greene & Heaton.

Something to Live For is a heart-warming and bittersweet story that explores the particular...

Chrisley Knows Best producer Maverick Television has hired How Clean is Your House and Four Rooms exec Hannah Brownhill as Creative Director.

This follows the departure of Emily Dollman to Peter Fincham and Tim Hincks’ Expectation Entertainment.

Brownhill will take up the role at the All3Media indie in May, reporting to Maverick’s Chief Executive Officer, Simon Knight. She joins from Warner Bros-owned Renegade Pictures, where she was Director of Development. At Renegade, she worked on its factual entertainment slate including development projects for Channel 4, BBC and UKTV’s W, while at Fremantle-owned Boundless Productions, she worked on series Would Like to Meet, House Doctor, How Clean is Your House, Four Rooms and Great British Railway Journeys as well as The Week the Landlords Moved In, An Hour To Save A Life, Worlds Toughest Jobs, House Doctor Returns and Secrets In My Family.

Maverick produces series including Operation...

Expectation Entertainment has not only met expectations but exceeded them in the two years since it was set up, but given the track-record of its co-CEOs perhaps this should not be such a surprise.

The company, led by Peter Fincham, formerly controller of BBC One and director of television at ITV, and Tim Hincks, latterly president of Endemol Shine Group, is making 13 series this year, spread across all genres, with more set to follow.

Its series include “The Big Narstie Show,” a chat-show hosted by a grime artist, ordered by Channel 4, “Superkids: Breaking Away from Care,” a documentary series about kids in care who take part in a public performance, again ordered by Channel 4, a coming-of-age sitcom about a gay school-kid, “In My Skin,” produced for the BBC, and cookery challenge show “The Brigade,” another BBC show.

Speaking Sunday at MipFormats, which runs as an appetizer to this week...

Game of Thrones star Jamie Sives and Catastrophe star Mark Bonnar are to front a four-part dark crime caper for the BBC.

Guilt, written by Eric, Ernie And Me writer Neil Forsyth, will be the first drama for BBC Scotland’s new digital channel and will then air on BBC Two.

Sives, who starred as Jory Cassel in the HBO drama, and Bonnar play two disparate Scottish brothers Max and Jake who, while driving home from a wedding together one night, accidentally run over and kill an old man on a darkened street. After making the panicked decision to cover their tracks, the brothers seem to get away with their crime. However, as neighbours and relatives of the dead man begin to suspect his death wasn’t as innocent as it initially seemed, the brothers find their lives rapidly falling apart, as their actions begin to catch up with them.

Tim Hincks and Peter Fincham’s UK production company Expectation is bolstering its factual division with the hire of Maverick TV’s Emily Dollman.

Dollman has been appointed Head of Development at the BBC Studios-backed production group’s factual division. She was previously Head of Development at All3Media-owned Maverick.

She will join the team run by Colin Barr and Amy Flanagan, which also includes senior executive producers Ruth Kelly and Dominique Foster.

Dollman’s previous credits include Channel 4’s Escape and Tried and Tasted as well as forthcoming ITV doc series The Ritz. She has also worked on shows such as The Apprentice, The Voice and The Audience.

Expectation Factual Creative Director, Factual and Factual Drama Colin Barr said, “Emily has all the cross genre instincts and abilities that a company like Expectation needs. She’s as comfortable with concept as she is editorial and her energy...

Exclusive: Former Big Brother boss Nick Samwell Smith has left Tim Hincks and Peter Fincham’s Expectation.

I hear Samwell Smith, who was Creative Director of Entertainment at the BBC Studios-backed business, left quietly over the last few months.

Samwell Smith was one of the company’s first hires when it launched at the start of last year. He worked alongside Nick Mather, who was also Creative Director, Entertainment, and was responsible for exec producing Channel 5 travelogue Dale’s Florida Fly Drive. Prior to joining Expectation, Samwell Smith was Managing Director of Endemol Shine-owned Initial, which he joined in 1997 before becoming Creative Director in 2006 and MD in 2013. In addition to producing 15 seasons of Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother, Samwell Smith also produced series including Fame Academy, Total Wipeout, Your Face Sounds Familiar, Dating In The Dark and 101 Ways To Leave A Gameshow.

An Expectation spokeswoman told Deadline,...

Exclusive: Tim Hincks and Peter Fincham’s Expectation has scored a pilot for an entertainment series hosted by Alan Carr for pay-tv giant Sky.

This comes months after his exclusive golden handcuffs deal with rival broadcaster Channel 4 ended.

The performer, who has hosted series including The Friday Night Project and Chatty Man, is hosting Alan Carr’s Telly Pilot for Sky. I hear it’s being considered for Sky One.

The show will feature Carr giving his own take on the week’s television with a range of sketches and stand-up monologues.

Deadline understands that the show is being overseen by Expectation’s Head of Comedy Entertainment Ben Wicks, who has previously worked with Carr on Specstacular.

The non-tx pilot, which is being filmed on October 12, is Carr’s first for the pay-tv broadcaster. His C4 handcuffs deal ended earlier this year after the launch of I Don’t...

British broadcaster Channel 4 is doubling down on grime with a three-part documentary series set in Blackpool, handing The Big Narstie Show a second season and giving Narstie’s co-host Mo Gilligan his own series.

The network revealed its latest slate of youth-skewing shows at the Edinburgh International TV Festival.

It’s Grime Up North (w/t), which is produced by BBC Studios, follows the lives of a group of young MCs on the Blackpool grime scene. It will follow artists such as Little T (aka Josh Tate), Sophie Aspin and Millie B as well as a group of others striving for a break. The doc series was ordered by Channel 4’s Formats Commissioning Editor Lee McMurray and departing Head of Formats Dom Bird. The series is produced by BBC Studios’ Auntie Productions, whose Creative Directors are Sam Bickley and Samantha Anstiss. The executive producer is Kat Lennox and series producer is Danny Fildes.

BBC Studios is searching for a new content chief after the British public broadcaster’s production unit handed Chief Creative Officer Mark Linsey a new role.

Linsey will take charge of its portfolio of production company relationships across the whole sector, managing partnerships with indies and BBC Studios Production. He will also oversee BBC Studios’ new Content Partnerships team, which is formed of Scripted Portfolio Director Liam Keelan, Unscripted Portfolio Director Mark Reynolds and a new exec who will lead editorial strategy for content and platforms.

The company will hire a new Director of Content, who will steer the editorial strategy for BBC Studios Production in the UK. The new exec will work closely alongside Anna Mallett, MD, Production, who will have overall accountability for BBC Studios Production’s Business and Operations, as well as International Production & Formats.

BBC Studios owns stakes in indies including Killing Eve producer Sid Gentle...

A David Tennant-fronted comedy drama, a multi-character sitcom from the writer of Paddington 2, a comedy crime thriller featuring Episodes’ Daisy Haggard and a raft of new talent form part of the BBC’s latest comedy drive.

The British public broadcaster has unveiled its new slate of comedies across its channels BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four. This comes as BBC comedy chief Shane Allen tells Deadline that by making shows that are quintessentially British, they are increasingly traveling to the U.S. and internationally without the need to be remade.

On BBC One, Paddington 2’s Simon Farnaby and his colleagues behind Horrible Histories and Yonderland are producing Ghosts, a multi-character sitcom. Farnaby, Mathew Baynton, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond are working with Monumental Television on the six-part horror comedy, which follows a group of restless spirits squabbling in a crumbling country house.

Expectation Entertainment, the British production company run by Tim Hincks and Peter Fincham, has moved into podcasting with a David Bowie series led by the former Endemol Shine President himself.

Hincks is co-hosting Stalking Time For The Moon Boys with British comedian David Baddiel. The show, which is named after a lyric from The Bewlay Brothers, a track from Bowie’s 1971 record Hunky Dory, sees the two self-confessed Bowie nerds chatting about Thin White Duke.

Hincks, who has often made the television industry laugh with his own brand of stand-up on the conference scene, said, “There’s no such thing as too much information when it comes to David Bowie and if you don’t believe that, you definitely should not be listening to this [podcast].”

Fantasy Football League star Baddiel, who recently fronted documentary The Trouble with Dad, about his father’s dementia, added, “It’s really just a thing...

British broadcaster Channel 4 is doubling down on comedy after handing the genre a £10M (Us$13.4M) budget boost and scoring a number of projects involving Catastrophe creator Sharon Horgan.

Horgan will star and exec produce Happy Af (w/t), a comedy about trying to find happiness. Created by Aisling Bea, who is set to star in Amy Poehler’s forthcoming NBC comedy I Feel Bad, the series stars her as Aine, who is trying to pull her life back together after a nervous breakdown. Horgan, who produces through her Merman banner, also stars as her sister Shona.

Horgan is also producing Next Week’s News, a TV pilot from Deborah Frances-White, the creator of The Guilty Feminist podcast. The 45-minute show will be based in a studio, overseen by a female-led production team, with followers encouraged to speak out on a range of issues. Merman, which is run by...

Projects from Riz Ahmed, David Harewood and The Fall creator Allan Cubitt lead an ambitious line-up of new commissions from BBC Two. The British public broadcaster has unveiled a huge slate of shows for its second channel ranging from high-end dramas and comedies through to documentary series.

In drama, it has ordered Englistan, created by The Night Of star Riz Ahmed. The nine-part series, which is produced by BBC Studios Drama London and Ahmed’s own Left Handed Films, is the story of three generations of a British Pakistani families as they pursue their dreams over four tumultuous decades, navigating shifting circumstances and evolving loyalties. The drama will re-frame recent British history, and shine a light on the forces that have remade British society what it is today. It will be exec produced by Ahmed, Esther Springer, Hilary Salmon and Lucy Richer.

The Fall creator Cubitt is adapting Eugene McCabe...

Exclusive: Move over Strictly Come Dancing, there's a younger, cooler kid in town. The BBC is developing its latest Saturday night entertainment format, a dance competition from Tim Hincks' and Peter Fincham's Expectation. I hear the indie, which the former Endemol Group President and ITV Director of Television established in 2016, is working on Drop The Beat for primetime BBC1. The production company, which is backed by BBC Worldwide, is currently piloting the project…...

BBC Worldwide content chief Helen Jackson, who lead the company's aggressive production acquisition drive, is to leave the business as it merges with BBC Studios. Jackson, who was responsible for acquiring stakes in British production companies including Tim Hincks and Peter Fincham's Expectation Entertainment and War and Peace producer Lookout Point, is to leave the company after 31 years. She will remain with the recently rebranded BBC Studios business through 2018…...