The roll-out and new appointments are part of Viacoms ongoing expansion plans to enhance its international production capacity in English and Spanish languages.
Viacom International Studios (VIS) has announced that it will open new production centres in Madrid and Manchester as part of an ongoing expansion of its international production capacity in both the English and Spanish languages.
VIS is expanding its international production footprint following its successful launch in Latin America last year. VIS Americas, headed by Federico Cuervo, creates and distributes Latin content with more than 900 hours of scripted, comedy, reality and kids live action through six different production centres across the continent, which is available for pre-sale or syndication in 2019.
With a view to replicating this success in other territories, Jill Offman will now assume management oversight of Viacoms London-based production house, Elephant House Studios, which is being rebranded as Viacom International Studios UK with immediate effect.
At the same time, VIS UK will open a new production office in Manchester to support its push to secure English-language commissions from third party broadcasters and distributors based in the UK, in addition to the large volume of content it already produces locally for Channel 5 and Viacoms pay TV channels.
The UK production outfit is currently filming its first-ever original production for a channel or platform not owned by Viacom, having been commissioned to produce a new prime time factual series for ITV. Full details will be published shortly.
VIS UKs General Manager, Joe McLusky, and Creative Director, Ed Taylor, will now report to Offman, who as international brand head for both Comedy Central and Paramount Network already has oversight of comedy and drama productions for Viacom out of the UK. Offman is funding a number of scripted development projects with UK independent producers including a re-make of Bergerac from Artist Studios and a TV treatment of Amanda Craigs novel Lie of the Land from Baby Cow.
Coinciding with Offman taking on her new UK responsibilities, Laura Abril has been appointed to lead a planned VIS expansion across western and southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (MENA). Based in Madrid, Abril will head an expanded team that, like VIS UK, has been tasked with securing commissions from pay TV operators, broadcasters and SVOD and social media platforms across these regions, in addition to having oversight of all production of multi-platform content for Viacoms own branded networks in these territories. The team in Madrid will also work closely with their colleagues at VIS Americas to jointly develop, produce and syndicate content across western and southern Europe and MENA for example, the VIS teams in Argentina and Spain have collaborated on the development of a Spanish-language remake for TV of the Hitchcock classic, To Catch a Thief, which will be produced in Barcelona and Buenos Aires.
Speaking about the expansion plans, David Lynn, CEO, Viacom International Media Networks, said: Broadcasters and streamers are in a global arms race for the best content, which represents a significant growth opportunity for Viacom with our international studio capacity and in-built creative expertise, exemplified by Jill, Laura and Federico. As our competitors become more vertically integrated, Viacom is free to forge much deeper partnerships with all kinds of distributors internationally and for all types of content.
Having secured high-profile content deals with a number of distributors across Latin America, including the recent launch of its comedy Homens on Amazon Prime and the sale of Borges to Netflix, the VIS Americas team has now finalised a number of sales to European broadcasters including licensing the format for Amar Despues de Amar (Love After Loving) to Alpha in Greece, TVI Portugal and Atresmedia in Spain.
