Factual output deal for Southern Star and Alba

Following a restructuring of Southern Star's factual division, the company has signed an exclusive output deal with London-based Alba Communications for 20 hours of doc programming a year.

Under the deal, the Australian distributor will bring international finance to a number of the archive-based production outfit's shows. Alba has previously made shows for the likes of Discovery, History Channel and PBS.

{We've committed to three shows,{ says Southern Star's newly-promoted head of factual Simon Willock. {Blitzkrieg, Private Executioners and Kamikaze.{

Blitzkrieg is a 3×60' doc looking at the notorious invasion technique pioneered by Hilter's WWII armies. Private Executioners is a 60' special documenting the history of hangmen, while Kamikaze examines the cult of suicide soldiers from the Japanese and Germans to the modern day.

The latter show, which Willock says now has a {macabre topicality,{ already has an A&E deal in the pipeline.

As for the financing structure for the Alba shows, Willock said: {Southern Star will bring the minimum investment necessary to trigger a pre-sale, and then the show will go into production.{

Willock added that Southern Star has also increased its co-production deal with Mentorn Barraclough Carey so the two outfits will now co-produce three series a year. The distributor already has a co-production arrangement with Wark Clements called Factual Factory.

The factual restructure is intended to end the historical separation of Southern Star's in-house production and distribution divisions. {Distribution is now part of the production process,{ said Willock.

{Our distribution division was increasingly taking on exec producer roles so our restructure was a sensible move. Production and distribution are now part and parcel of the same process.{

He added that the move reflected a change in the TV distribution business. {Distribution is now more about pre-sales and less about deficit-funding. With the fragmentation of the market, deficit-funding is now a hiding to nothing.{