SKY & HBO Cement Ties With A $250M Co-Production Deal
We don’t often post ‘corporate’ news on the site, but this was such a large investment, we thought it was worth highlighting to people. HBO and Sky have joined forces to oversee a development slate of high end productions, that with feature new projects with international points of view and casting.
This will be a $250m (that’s currently around £195m) multi-year co-production deal, which will will involve green-lighting at least 2 drama projects per year, with the first project coming to screen in 2018. “Sky has been a great partner for us and this deal allows even deeper collaboration between our two great companies, which have a long tradition in creating superior content for our customers,” commented Chairman and CEO of HBO, Richard Plepler. “Together we represent the best in television and combined we will raise the bar even higher in pay TV programming.”
A panel of executives from both organisations will be responsible for greenlighting the projects. The HBO and Sky partnership will be open to pitches from across the creative community, in both the US and Europe, and is looking for ideas consistent with the content strategies of HBO in North America and the Sky Atlantic brand in Europe.
Sky already work closely with HBO, as they have a deal to air the US network’s original programming and back catalogue (with a few caveats for existing deals), on the Sky network across the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy and Austria. “HBO and Sky have for many years shared a common creative culture and a common vision for the development of high quality drama,” added Jeremy Darroch, Group CEO of Sky. “This new venture deepens that relationship, maintains our leadership position in world-class content, provides great opportunities for indies and gives our customers even more opportunity to enjoy brilliant storytelling.”
The first projects of the partnership have been initiated in development, with announcements expected in the coming weeks.
