Barcroft Media announces long-form content deals with ITV Studios Global Entertainment, Off the Fence and Zig Zag Productions
Barcroft TV’s YouTube channel debuts premium long form content from October 2nd with global platform rollout to follow
London(29 Sep 2014)
Barcroft Media has completed a series of licensing deals to deliver the first 23 hours of premium factual programming for its successful online video channel Barcroft TV.
Under the terms of the deals, Barcroft TV will show a series of real life documentaries from ITV Studios Global Entertainment’s Our Lives (5 x 60’) strand. Barcroft Productions originally co-produced ‘My Child is a Monkey’ and ‘The World’s Smallest Girl’ with Zig Zag Productions for various British broadcasters.
Global producer and distributor Off the Fence will provide an initial offering of 18 hours worth of varied documentary programming including: You Exposed’ (4 x 60’), ‘Body Image’ (4 x 60’) and ‘Cosmetic Surgery’ (4 x 60’) which explores real life cosmetic surgery and body image stories. Another licensed series of films from Off the Fence includes ‘Women in Blue’ (3 x 60’) which takes viewers behind the scenes of the LAPD toughest female cops. The films tell their incredible action-packed real-life stories and how they balance a life at home with stakeouts, drug busts and splitting-up gang fights.
Barcroft will also license Off the Fence’s ‘Changing Sexes’ (2 x 60’) a documentary that explores the physical, mental, and emotional stories of individuals involved in gender reassignment surgery.
The titles will be shown as part of the new Barcroft Docs strand and will each become available to view every Tuesday and Thursday at 7pm GMT on Barcroft TV.
The agreements are based on a revenue share model funded by advertising. Barcroft TV’s YouTube and Daily Motion channels and the company’s own re-launched website Barcroft.tv will debut the content that will also roll out across a number of other global and regional platforms. Digital platforms that currently carry Barcroft TV include the Rightster network, AOL On, MSN, Yahoo Screen, YouKu in China and Yahoo’s GyaO! in Japan.
Having just surpassed 630,000 subscribers for Barcroft TV’s YouTube channel, the company expects to add over 1 billion video views in the next 12 months across all platforms that carry the channel.
“These compelling programmes are perfect for our global Barcroft TV audience” said Barcroft Media CEO and founder, Sam Barcroft. “Premium, long form content is the future for digital channels and we’re excited to be creating a new revenue stream for our production and distribution partners, enabling them to further exploit their exceptional content catalogues whilst bringing fascinating documentaries to our vibrant global community of viewers and subscribers”.
“I have the deepest respect for the recent carriage deals Barcroft Media was able to seal. Its global digital penetration in conjunction with a die-hard editorial and development team makes this company a very forward thinking media house. We are very proud to now be a prime supplier to its growing global business” said Bo Stehmeier, Managing Director, Distribution, Off the Fence.
“We’re excited to extend our long standing relationship with Barcroft onto new platforms. We’ve had great success in partnering with them on single docs, series and returning formats many of which have been well received critically and in terms of ratings and awards. They have also been profitable in terms of revenue generated from distribution and we have upmost confidence in Barcroft to deliver new revenue streams for all parties concerned with this new venture” said Danny Fenton, CEO Zig Zag Productions.
Barcroft TV’s content strategy is focused on portraying the ‘amazing side of life’ and features globally popular video categories including extreme sports, super fans and enthusiasts and amazing natural world and wildlife videos.
Barcroft TV was shortlisted for a Broadcast Digital Award 2014 for Best Original Web Channel.