Earth Touch strikes deals for Epic Yellowstone

Wildlife and factual entertainment producer-distributor Earth Touch as signed a host of international broadcast deals for Smithsonian Channel’s four part series Epic Yellowstone.

Earth Touch has sold the series to global broadcast partners including ARTE, Discovery Asia, KBS, TVB Hong Kong, SVT, FTV Prima, Mediaset, Viasat, Ushuaia TV and Thai PBS.

Produced by Grizzly Creek Films, Epic Yellowstone (pictured) was filmed over two years and follows nature’s “epic drama” through flood, freeze, fire and famine. The prodco’s founder, Thomas Winston, serves as director and executive producer.

Drive picks up historical series, inks copro deal

Production-funding and distribution agency Drive has secured distribution rights to a trio of colorized historical series.

Drive will distribute globally Lost Home Movies of Nazi Germany (2 x 60 minutes; Bright Button Productions for BBC), which delves into the private collections of members of Hitler’s Third Reich; and Auschwitz Untold: In Colour (2 x 60 minutes; Fulwell73 for Channel 4/History Channel), which reveals scenes from the notorious Nazi death camps.

Elsewhere, Drive has entered a coproduction deal with UK company Make Waves Media for Shackleton (w/t), a new project in partnership with The British Film Institute and the Royal Geographical Society. The documentary aims to mark the centenary of Irish Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton’s death in 2022.

UKTV slates Expedition with Steve Backshall special

BBC-owned multi-channel broadcaster UKTV announced plans to produce and air the 60 minute special Expedition Unseen.

The film will take viewers “further and deeper” into each episode of the new season of Expedition with Steve Backshall (4 x 60 minutes; Dave), which the broadcaster recently greenlit in partnership with Fremantle.

Produced by True to Nature, the show follows Backshall and his crew of “adventurist experts” as they travel the globe and document their “natural world first discoveries.”