Beyond Rights chief David Smyth to leave following Banijay takeover

UK-based Beyond Rights CEO David Smyth is leaving the business following Banijay’s takeover of its parent company, Beyond International in Australia, earlier this month.

David Smyth

The European production and distribution giant took full control of the Australian company’s production and distribution business worldwide at the beginning of 2023.

Smyth, who joined Beyond Rights in early 2022, will leave the company on January 31 as Banijay begins integrating Beyond International into its existing group.

Smyth previous role before he joined Beyond Rights was founder and CEO of UK-based multi-channel AVoD service YouLook.tv.

Prior to that he worked at both Twentieth Century Fox, latterly as senior VP and MD, and at UK pay TV channel Sky One, where he was head of acquisitions. He has also worked at both the BBC and ITV.

A Banijay Rights representative said Smyth had “made a significant contribution to the company through his strong and effective leadership. We’d like to thank him for his hard work and commitment to the business and wish him all the best with his future endeavours.”

Banijay’s deal for Beyond, first announced in October, was rumoured to be worth over US$30m. Beyond has offices in Australia, Ireland, the UK and US, where it produces more than 5,000 hours of TV content including science shows MythBusters (Discovery Channel) and White Rabbit Project (Netflix), plus reality series My Lottery Dream Home (HGTV).

Beyond Rights was formed at the start of 2020 when Australia-based parent company Beyond International merged its London-based sales house, Beyond Distribution, with TCB Media Rights, the independent distributor it acquired out of the wreckage of Canadian media group Kew Media.