The North Road Company buys Red Arrow Studios US production business
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Editor
| 07 July 2022
Continuing its current business strategy to focus on core activities, ProSiebenSat.1 Group has announced the sale of the US part of its Red Arrow Studios’ production business to The North Road Company.
SYTTD 7July2022
Founded in 2022 by former News Corporation president, chairman, chief executive and chief operating officer Peter Chernin, The North Road Company is a global, multi-genre studio that produces scripted, documentary, and non-scripted film and TV content across the US and international markets.

The North Road comprises production entities including Chernin Entertainment, the scripted TV and film business formed in 2010; Red Arrow Studios’ U.S. assets (Kinetic Content, Left/Right, and 44 Blue Productions); Words + Pictures, the premium non-fiction business; and an international business that will be dedicated to strategic acquisitions and localised programming. The North Road already claims to be one of the largest suppliers of TV and film content, with over 70 active productions from Chernin Entertainment, Words + Pictures and Red Arrow’s US portfolios.

Red Arrow Studios, ProSiebenSat.1 Group’s production network, built up its US business from 2010 producing a number of successful formats for US stations and platforms such as Love Is Blind (Kinetic Content for Netflix), The Weekly (Left/Right for FX and Hulu), Wahlburgers (44 Blue for A&E), Say Yes to the Dress (Half Yard Productions for TLC) and Building Alaska (Dorsey Pictures for Discovery). The transaction has an enterprise value of $310 million. The US production companies generated an adjusted EBITDA of $8 million in full-year 2021.

Commenting on the foundation of the new company and the purchase of the Red Arrow assets, Chernin said: “Our goal is to build a leading global, independent content studio by combining top industry production entities with leaders who are each proven experts in their businesses. Premium scripted and non-scripted content across film and TV is in high demand both in the US and globally, and we aspire to meet the needs of the streamers, cable networks, broadcasters, and any other platform that may emerge with exceptional, commercial content.”

ProSiebenSat.1 Group says the sale – which includes the Kinetic Content, Left/Right, 44 Blue, Half Yard Productions and Dorsey Pictures business lines - reflects the focus of entertainment business on producing local, relevant content that is distributed live and on-demand across all platforms in the German-speaking region.

German-speaking production business of Redseven Entertainment and the European production companies CPL Productions, Endor Productions, Snowman Productions and July August Productions will now make an increasing contribution to ProSiebenSat.1’s programming strategy. The distribution business Red Arrow Studios International will also remain in the Group.

ProSiebenSat.1 recently launched two new production companies in Germany with Cheerio Entertainment and Flat White Productions to strengthen its own production capacities in the Entertainment segment for the German-speaking market. In addition, the Group had invested in the production company Pyjama Pictures in 2019. Global digital media and entertainment company Studio71 also remains a firm part of the Group’s strategy with a particular emphasis in addressing young target groups.

“We continuously verify that our companies are fully aligned with our strategy and financial targets. In the entertainment business, this means that we need production companies that understand the cultural characteristics and preferences of our viewers,” remarked Rainer Beaujean, Group CEO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE.

“After all, local content is what sets us apart from the competition. Such production businesses are, besides our German companies, our assets in countries such as Denmark and the UK. It was therefore consequent that we keep these companies within our Group. Our top priority is to link them even more closely with our entertainment platforms. Our US production companies have created successful and popular TV brands in the US market, but do not strengthen our strategy in the German-speaking region in the long term. For North Road, they will make a significant contribution. We wish them all the best for this and thank them very much for our time together.”