C4 grabs White Gold, Sky ‘oil’

The UK’s Channel 4 has commissioned a historical drama series based on Giles Milton’s book White Gold.

Bafta winning writer Adrian Hodges is working on a two-hour pilot script for the proposed 12-part series to be produced by Red Arrow Entertainment. Head of drama and comedy at Red Arrow Simon Maxwell will executive produce alongside Sophie Gardiner, C4’s commissioning editor for drama.

White Gold is an account of the white slave trade through the 17th and 18th centuries when more than a million white slaves were snatched in raids across Europe by the Barbary Corsair pirates and put to work.

Red Arrow and producer Piers Tempest optioned the television rights to the book in 2011. The development is being funded by C4’s rights exploitation arm 4Rights which will take all secondary UK rights if the script is ordered to series. Red Arrow International will distribute the series globally.

C4 has also greenlit a one-off documentary on the forthcoming US presidential elections. Matt Frei’s Obama and Me (1×49) will see Frei, the channel’s Washington correspondent, travel across the US attending political rallies, conventions and church services to gauge public opinion of the president ahead of the election.

The programme is produced by Oxford Films and will air in November.

The broadcaster is also working on Hotel GB – a series set to air in October that will see its best known stars like Mary Portas, Gordon Ramsey and Gok Wan take over the running of a hotel for a week.

In other news, C4 has struck an agreement with satcaster BSkyB for its channels and programming to be carried on Sky’s digital platforms. Content will be added to Sky’s on-demand service, and online viewing platform Sky Go.

As part of the deal, C4 also gets access to a mountain of Sky audience data, something C4 CEO David Abraham has made a key strategic priority since he described it as being “the new oil.”