Pivot adds 300 hours of originals

Participant Media’s fledgling millennial-skewing US cablenet Pivot has announced more than 300 hours of original programming development at its 2014 upfront in New York.

The slate includes four new original series commissions and another 11 in development with an expanded relationship with Spanish-language broadcaster Univsion on documentary films targeting Hispanic millennials.

In scripted, Pivot has six shows in development including improv comedy Laughing Matters with Eyeworks and Media Red, animated comedy Leader Town from Electus and Bento Box, and Panic Years from Universal Cable Productions, based on a book by Doree Lewak that focuses on four friends who make poor decisions when they find themselves the wrong side of 25.

FremantleMedia North America and Pukeko Pictures are working on Prison Earth, a science fiction series about a detention centre that houses the Earth’s first guests from outer space while Alan Gasmer, executive producer on History ratings hit The Vikings, is working on family drama Thirst.

Pivot is also swooping in to replace rival cablenet Starz as coproduction partner on BSkyB’s drama Fortitude. It will now be the exclusive US home for the 12×60’ series, which is scheduled to transmit in 2015 making it the channel’s first original scripted project.

The unscripted slate includes America’s Got Issues from producer Serious Business – a half-hour clip-based comedy show which examines America’s popular culture – and American Rewind from Stick Figure Studios, which follows the employees of the world’s largest living exhibition, Colonial Williamsburg, whose day-job is recreating the Revolutionary era.

Trium Entertainment is working on I Am Young Detroit which looks at a social venture that promotes entrepreneurship as a means of combatting youth unemployment.

The channel’s partnership with Univision will curate eight documentary projects in Spanish and English including Cesar’s Last Fast, a multiplatform project on civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, and Marmato, which looks at a rural Colombian mining village in danger of being engulfed by a new gold rush.

Pivot will return its comedy series Please Like Me for a second season launching on August 8 at 22.00 (ET) and Embassy Row is working on a new season of TakePart Live, hosted by Meghan McCain and Jacob Soboroff with Eddie Huang, which will launch on May 12 at a new time of 22.00 ET.

Pivot has also given air dates to two of its previously announced original series. Human Resources from producer Left/Right, a 10×30’ comedic doc which focuses on an eccentric New Jersey entrepreneur and his company which aims to eliminate waste on a global scale, will premiere on August 8 at 22.30.

Welcome to Fairfax (10×30’), which looks at the lives of young creative living in a unique block in Los Angeles, will premiere in October.