Factual rejig for Southern Star

Australian distributor Southern Star is restructuring its UK-based factual activities, with a promotion and a revamp of its Oxford Scientific Films division.

Simon Willock is to become Southern Star's head of factual, responsible for development, production and acquisition of all the distributor's factual programming. His promotion is effective from October 1.

Headed up by Willock, the natural history unit of Oxford Scientific Films will also move to London and attempt to use Southern Star's co-production alliances to branch out into new areas of activity.

Southern Star is involved in a number of factual alliances such the Factual Factory with Wark Clements and Mentorn Barraclough Carey, as well as having previous co-production partnerships with Tigress and Pioneer.

It has also inked a two-year output agreement with Italian public broadcaster Rai 3. For this deal, OSF has teamed up with Panthera Productions to produce Elephant’s Empire for the Discovery Network.

{TV is now a global business where we are seeing a convergence of distribution and production in order to fund programming,{ said Southern Star Circle's ceo Clare Birks.

{Fully-funded productions are increasingly a thing of the past and producers need co-producers and financiers that can build a hands-on relationship from the conceptual stage onwards.{

Willock described the move as a {rationalisation of Southern Star's factual efforts.{ One of his first tasks will be to recruit a creative team to lead a new doc strand for OSF to target more populist, lower budget series.