Asia-Pac nets board TVF factual

Sky Arts in New Zealand, Australian pay TV platform Foxtel and Nat Geo Asia are among the Asia-Pacific broadcasters picking up factual content from London-based distributor TVF International.

TVF has concluded sales for more than 130 hours of content to broadcasters in the region following the Asia Television Forum last month. The company has also acquired 25 new hours of programming from the area.

Sky Arts New Zealand and Foxtel Australia have both taken the BBC doc Queen Victoria’s Letters: A Monarch Unveiled (2×60’) from What Larks! Productions as well as The Story of British Pathé (4×60’).

Both channels also snapped up five arts titles from the Perspectives strand of UK commercial broadcaster ITV, which features well-known personalities talking about artists who inspired them. The episodes include Foxtrot Films’ War Art with Eddie Redmayne, which is due to air in the UK soon.

Nat Geo Asia has licensed a second season of Food Files Series II, while The Australia Network has taken Family Confidential (8×30’), which goes behind the headlines to uncover the home truths and private motivations of international icons such as Miranda Kerr and Hugh Jackman.

Sky Arts, along with Maori Arts, has also taken Reed Entertainment’s Oscar-winning The Lady in Number 6 (1×37’), which tells the incredible story of Alice Herz-Sommer, pianist and the world’s oldest holocaust survivor.

Sky Arts’ package is concluded with Storyville’s anticipated The Cambodian Space Project – Not So Easy Rock ’n’ Roll (1×57’) from Flaming Star, which is billed as a musical rollercoaster ride featuring rare cinematic archive material from the personal films of King Sihanouk.

In Australia, pubcaster SBS2 has taken National Geographic original Kung Fu Motion (5×60’) from Sitting-In Pictures, which follows extreme athlete Harry Yuan as he travels to China to learn the iconic stunts of various Chinese marital art forms in just five days. Okto (Singapore), Next Step (Thailand) and Pearl (Hong Kong) have also taken the show.

In Thailand, True Visions has snatched up TVNZ’s Across the World With Te Radar (16×30’) from Jam TV, which sees the eponymous eco-adventurer on a global quest to find the most spectacular feats of innovation in the fight to protect the environment.

The channel has also acquired Life, Death and Reincarnation (4×60’) from Flutesong Media, and action-packed male-skewing series All 4 Adventure: Across The Top, which premiered on Australia’s Seven Network.

Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s Formulation took on several crime shows including Crime and Investigation Network’s The Soham Murders (1×52’) and Of Dolls and Murder (1×52’).

Alongside these sales, TVF has signed up 25 new hours of programming including the year’s biggest surf film Strange Rumblings in Shangri La (1×60’) from Whyte House Entertainment in association with boardsports company Globe International. Hunting series Untamed With Davey Hughes (9×30’) from Monsoon Pictures, which has already been picked up by ITVN (TVN’s international Polish feed) and Chasing Longevity (6×23’) from XChannel NewsAsia are also included.