Focus on feel-good titles as distributor works to help fill schedules. 

Orange Smarty, the independent distributor that specialises in multiplatform factual content, comes to market with 175 hours of new programming. 

The new slate covers the feel-good spectrum, from cheeky toddlers to naughty cats, via perfect properties, pilgrims — and pubic hair. It also features titles from six producers new to Orange Smarty’s fast-growing catalogue, including the UK’s Primal Media, Yeti Media and Little Gem, Canada’s Summerhill Media, Australia’s Jaffle Media and New Zealand’s ASC Media. 

Highlights include ASC Media/TVNZ’s Living With The Boss, a fun yet informative series and format in which employees invite the boss to stay in their houses, in a bid to forge a personal connection and improve their working lives. Work of a different kind is the focus of Yeti’s The Wedding Guru. Commissioned by BBC, the comedic documentary follows Onkar Singh Purewal, the self-styled “greatest event manager the world has ever seen”. More fun and information is on offer in the second season of One Tribe/BBC One’s Dirty Vegan, in which Dirty Sanchez frontman Matt Pritchard, now an ultra-athlete and chef, cooks up “banging” vegan recipes.

The home front is represented by series 13 of Channel 4’s evergreen property-search series A Place In The Sun, produced by Freeform Productions; while family life is put under the microscope in Sky Atlantic’s powerful four-parter This Is Our Family. Filmed over three years by producer Little Gem, each 60-minute film provides an intimate look at the evolution of four families as they deal with such universal themes as birth, death and marriage. Primal Media’s Home Free, meanwhile, is a heartwarming account of young people with learning disabilities who are leaving home for the first time.

For uncomplicated fun GooWoo Media/Channel 5’s Naughty Toddlers Caught On Camera and Naughty Cats On Camera deliver exactly what they promise. More thoughtful but no less entertaining is Milk and Honey/Channel 4’s Bring Back The Bush: Where Did Our Pubic Hair Go?, which examines society fixation with unnaturally hairless bodies; and Jaffle Media/Channel 9’s Giving Life, which tells the inspiring stories of those whose lives have been saved — and who have saved lives — as a result of blood donation. 

A third season of CTVC/BBC Two’s poplar Pilgrimage series is also making its debut. The Road to Istanbul follows a group of famous faces, including lapsed Jew Edwina Currie, Christian Fatima Whitbread, Muslim Amar Laif and atheist Dom Joly, on an uplifting modern-day pilgrimage that sees them question both their lives and their faiths.

Karen Young, founder and CEO of Orange Smarty, said: “There’s been a lot of talk about how COVID-19 is proving a boom for distributors, the perception being that broadcasters will take any old show to fill the holes that have suddenly appeared in schedules. Wrong! We’re working closely with our broadcast partners to help curate and package shows across genres, from feel-good to family to factual, to ensure that audiences suffer no drop in the quality of their entertainment during these incredibly challenging times. That not only requires laser-sharp marketing but a real knowledge of our clients’ strengths, needs and positioning. We believe our new titles will help in that effort by delivering shows that keep broadcasters relevant — and the nation smiling.” 

About Orange Smarty

Orange Smarty was launched in 2013 by media executive Karen Young, who has some 20 years of experience in international distribution. Four years later, the Brighton-based independent was named the UK’s fastest-growing distribution company by Broadcast Magazine — a feat it repeated the following year. Specialising in factual content, including specialist factual, popular factual and factual entertainment, Orange Smarty’s nine-strong team offers a flexible, personalised service to its growing stable of producer-partners and multiplatform broadcast clients. In 2018, Orange Smarty launched a formats arm. The distributor now represents more than 2,500 hours of content, including new releases The Great Hotel Escape and The Royals a Family in Crisis.