PRESS RELEASE
Australia's most-watched television broadcast television network, the Seven Network, and Beyond Productions today announced a development and marketing venture to create new programming initially for the North American marketplace.
The venture will be called 7Beyond and has established a Los Angeles office.
The new venture builds on Seven's market-leading presence in the creation of content in Australia and increasingly in international markets, and Beyond's acknowledged track record in the production of programming for the United States television market.
The content generated by the venture will be co-produced by the Seven Network's Seven Productions business and Beyond Productions, and distributed internationally by Beyond Distribution.
For nearly 30 years, Beyond Productions has been developing and producing programming for US broadcasters starting with the US version of Beyond 2000 – Beyond Tomorrow in 1988 through to over 200 episodes of the global smash MythBusters. Other long running series such as Taboo and Deadly Women have also been made for US broadcasters with a total of some 5,000 hours being produced by Beyond.
This year Seven Productions will commission, create and produce nearly 700 hours of television and is recognised as a leader in the production of scripted, entertainment, reality, observational documentaries and children's programming – with major projects including My Kitchen Rules, Border Security, House Rules, Home and Away, Packed to the Rafters and A Place to Call Home.
Brad Lyons, Director of Network Production for the Seven Network, said: “Our success in television is built on great ideas, and creating and commissioning great programmes. Our success in production and most importantly our people are driving a growth business for Seven Productions. This business is expanding dramatically. A key focus for us is taking our ideas and our content further into international markets. This strategy involves partnering with strategic alliances such as this venture with Beyond. Beyond has a fantastic team and we are looking forward to creating great new content with them.”
John Luscombe, EVP and GM of Beyond Productions said: “Beyond has a great reputation for developing innovative and sustainable formats for the American marketplace. Joining forces with Australia's largest producer and leading free to air network is a great way to expand our long standing production business in the United States.”
7Beyond has appointed Michael Krupat as SVP Development to oversee development and sales of projects for the venture.
Michael Krupat was most recently SVP of Development & Branded Content at Ryan Seacrest Productions. Prior to that, he created Food Networks hit cooking show Chopped. His Executive Producer credits include OWN's The Customer Is Always Right and and VH1's Dad Camp.