London, 19th March 2014
Yesterday, Britain's biggest factual channel and part of UKTV's multi-award winning network of 10 channels, today announced a co-production deal with Like A Shot Entertainment for WWII Air Crash Investigators and an acquisitions deal for Inquisition.
Garth Barnard has a lifelong passion and unshakeable resolve to investigate how thousands of young airmen from the Second World War died in catastrophic air accidents and training crashes. In WWII Air Crash Investigators, a new 6 x 60' series, Garth takes viewers on a journey around Britain, Australia, Poland, the US, and Gibraltar to uncover the truth behind these devastating accidents and to ensure the men lost in the air war against Germany and its allies are not forgotten.
Inquisition, a new 4 x 60' series, sheds new light on a dark and bloody chapter of British and European history. The Inquisitions were designed by the Roman Catholic Church to combat heresy in the 12th Century, and this programme explores why for nearly 500 years the saga of fear, persecution, torture and death continued.
Adrian Wills, General Manager, Yesterday said
Both of these hard-hitting, powerful series explore and bring to life fascinating historical stories. Using state-of-the-art computer modelling and amazing insight from experts, WWII Air Crash Investigators aims to explain the fatal air crashes and honour the men that died for their country. Inquisition uses specially filmed reconstructions and respected historians to tell the dramatic stories of how men and women died for their beliefs.
Adrian Wills ordered both new series and the deal was negotiated by UKTV's Acquisitions and Co-Production Manager Emma Sparks.
Emma Sparks commented
We're delighted to be working with Like A Shot on these two incredible new series. They are experts in producing historic and factual programming that is entertaining, credible and fascinating. They are exciting additions to Yesterday 2014's schedule, which already includes a second series of Jamie Theakston's Forbidden History.
Henry Scott, at Like A Shot added
although these are 2 very different ideas, they share the same principle: of telling great history stories to today's very well informed audiences in a way that is both compelling and entertaining. That's what we like to do at Like A Shot for Yesterday.
Yesterday is the home of fascinating factual stories. 2013's most popular series included Perfect Storms: Disasters that changed the World, which reached an audience of 1.8 million. The elite special-forces series Black Ops reached an 1.6 million individuals, and Forbidden History, presented by Jamie Theakston reached 1.5 million viewers.
-ENDS-
Notes to Editors
For more information:
Lara Feinstein, Corporate Communications Coordinator
Emily Jones, Publicist, Factual
About Yesterday
Showcasing UK premiere series such as Raiders of the Lost Past, Forbidden History, and Museum Secrets. Yesterday is the home of fascinating factual stories. The channel features dynamic history and science-inspired series such as Perfect Storms: Disasters that Changed the World, and programmes which challenge expectations including CIA Declassified. Ancient history is also featured in series including Ancient Black Ops and Medieval Dead, plus modern conflict in shows such as Black Ops.
Freeview 19, Sky 537, Virgin 203 www.yesterdaytv.co.uk
About UKTV
UKTV is the multi-award winning media company that reaches over 42 million viewers per month.
UKTV's ten imaginative channel brands - Watch, Dave, Gold, Alibi, Eden, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home and Good Food - include the most watched non-PSB channel, the most watched channel in the Factual genre and the most watched channels in the Lifestyle genre (Pay and Free). The company's most recent financial results showed a record-breaking year-end revenue of £262m, and operating profit at £71m.
UKTV has a truly innovative model, curating brand-defining commissions, high-profile acquisitions and the very best of BBC and Channel 4 content, and embracing technology to deliver inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT TV, TalkTalk, YouView, plus direct On Demand digital services. The network distributes its highly valued programmes to 200 territories around the world and supplies Sky with more hours of HD content than anyone else.
Now celebrating its 21st year at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI) - is proud to be the only British broadcaster to be recognised by Best Companies.
corporate.uktv.co.uk / pressoffice.uktv.co.uk / @uktv_press
About Like A Shot Entertainment
Like A Shot Entertainment was created by TV Executive Henry Scott and Producer Steve Gillham in 2011 specifically to address the growing finding gap in domestic TV commissioning and focus on factual and history based content with an International appeal. Recent productions include Instruments of Death, By Royal Appointment and Fight Club: A History of Violence.
As the market leans towards a co-production, or fully producer-funded model, the financial pressures on smaller independent Producers and Directors is increasing with no signs of abating.
Like A Shot not only creates its own programmes, it also works with talented individuals to provide development funding and then produce TV programmes under the Like A Shot umbrella before securing the best international distribution and secondary rights exploitation.
We have an ethos of creating a fair deal for our creative partners in terms of co-ownership of the rights, deferred revenues and any returning series or format rights. It is this equitable relationship which has allowed us to work with some of the most creative and inspirational partners both currently and long in to the future.
Like A Shot is based in Chiswick, West London.