Banijay arts slate gets Ovation

Art competition shows Portrait Artist of the Year

MIPTV: American arts network Ovation has secured a handful of shows in a volume deal with Banijay Rights, the distribution arm of international production and distribution firm Banijay Group.

The deal includes two more seasons each of long-running arts competition shows Portrait Artist of the Year and Landscape Artist of the Year, which have already debuted on the network in the US.

The shows from UK prodco Story Vault Films, both original productions for Sky Arts in the UK, involve the search for the country’s most talented portrait and landscape artists through several elimination rounds.

The deal also includes eight-part fact ent series IWC Media and Group M Entertainment’s Fake: The Great Masterpiece Challenge, also made for Sky Arts, and original Canadian action-adventure procedural crime series The Pinkertons (22×45’), made by Rosetta Media and Buffalo Gal Pictures.

Ovation has previously acquired Banijay titles such as Franco-Canadian drama copro Versailles from Capa Drama, Zodiak Fiction and Incendo Productions, and Rachel Hunter’s Tour of Beauty, also launching them to US viewers for the first time.

In other news the cablenet has also expanded its slate of culinary programming by licensing the first season of Jamie’s American Road Trip (6×60′) and three seasons of Jamie & Jimmy’s Food Fight Club (16×60′), fronted by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, from FremantleMedia International.

The deal also includes the documentary Alinea in Residence Madrid (1 x 60’). All three titles will air on the linear network as well as on Journy, Ovation’s AVOD travel channel.