Fifth Season inks strategic partnership with Blink49-owned Front Street Pictures
Front Street-produced holiday romance Scouting For Christmas
US-based studio Fifth Season has inked a distribution deal with Vancouver-based TV movie specialist Front Street Pictures.
Through the deal, Fifth Season will handle international sales for Front Street’s slate of TV movies, which spans holiday, romance, action mystery and horror titles produced for networks including Hallmark, Lifetime and Tubi.
The agreement sees Fifth Season expanding its partnership with Toronto-based Blink49 Studios (Wild Cards, Sight Unseen), which last year acquired a majority stake in Front Row. Blink49, led by CEO John Morayniss, launched in 2021 with Fifth Season as an anchor investor.
This marks Fifth Season’s first foray into distributing television movies. Front Street-produced titles that Fifth Season will sell internationally include romantic comedy trilogy The Groomsmen (Hallmark); Family Affair (Lifetime), executive produced by Mary J Blige; medical mystery Family Practice Mysteries: Coming Home (Hallmark); and holiday romance Scouting For Christmas (Hallmark).
“As we continue to integrate with our strategic investment companies and their partners, coming on board to represent Front Street Pictures’ leading TV movie slate is a natural extension of our strong partnership with Blink49,” said Prentiss Fraser, Fifth Season’s president of TV distribution.
“Front Street Pictures are an ideal partner for us to build out this new vertical for the television distribution business and with confirmed volume, allows us to secure long-term partnerships with broadcasters and platforms internationally.”
Blink49’s chief operating officer Nelson Kuo-Lee added: “One of our key strategic initiatives with our investment in Front Street Pictures has been the development of a robust international distribution strategy for [TV movie] content.”
