Viacom International Studios has announced plans to open new production centres in both Madrid and Manchester.
It’s part of an ongoing expansion of its production capability in both the English and Spanish languages and follows a successful launch in Latin America last year.
Jill Offman will now oversee Viacom’s London-based production house, Elephant House Studios, which is being rebranded as Viacom International Studios UK with immediate effect.
The Manchester production office hopes to secure English-language commissions from third party broadcasters and distributors based in the UK. In addition it will support Viacom’s own pay-TV channels and Channel 5.
David Lynn, CEO, Viacom International Media Networks, commented: “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.”
Filming of a new prime time factual series for ITV, the first programme for a non-Viacom channel, is already underway.
VIS UK’s 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.
Meanwhile, 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, will secure 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 Viacom’s own branded networks in these territories.
