From a media release:
Shaftesbury’s Murdoch Mysteries heading to China on state-owned broadcaster CCTV
Shaftesbury Films today announced that its homegrown hit drama series, Murdoch Mysteries, has been sold to China’s state-owned broadcaster CCTV to air on popular drama channel CCTV-8, which reaches 200 million homes. Seasons one and two of the series will be dubbed into Mandarin for broadcast as part of CCTV-8’s daily international drama programming block, Everyday Jiayi (“Best For Entertainmentâ€Â). Murdoch Mysteries airs on Citytv in Canada and UKTV’s Alibi in the UK, and has been licensed in over 100 territories worldwide by ITV STUDIOS Global Entertainment, which distributes the series outside of Canada and the UK.
Based on Canadian author Maureen Jennings’s popular Detective Murdoch series of mystery novels and set in late 1890s Toronto, Murdoch Mysteries explores the intriguing world of Detective William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson), who uses radical techniques for the time to solve some of the city’s most gruesome murders. Shaftesbury is currently in production on season four of the series in and around Toronto and Hamilton.
Murdoch Mysteries was recently honoured with an award for Excellent Drama Series at the 2010 Seoul International Drama Awards, which were presented in Seoul, Korea on September 10. Series’ lead Bisson was in attendance to accept the award on behalf of Shaftesbury.
Murdoch Mysteries is developed and produced by Shaftesbury, in association with Citytv, a division of Rogers Media Inc., ITV STUDIOS Global Entertainment and UKTV, and with the assistance of the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, the Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit, the Canada Media Fund, the Bell New Media Fund and the Cogeco Production Development Fund. ITV STUDIOS Global Entertainment holds worldwide distribution rights for the series (excluding Canada and the UK).
Murdoch Mysteries is executive produced by Christina Jennings and Scott Garvie for Shaftesbury, Noel Hedges for ITV STUDIOS Global Entertainment, Larry Lalonde (The Listener, Missing) and Phil Bedard (The Listener, Missing). The series is produced by Laura Harbin for Shaftesbury and Stephen Montgomery (Vacation with Derek), with Peter Meyboom serving as Supervising Producer. Production executives for Citytv are Alain Strati, Vice-President, OMNI Station Group, Specialty TV & Development and Patrice Baillargeon, Director, Development & Production, Rogers Media Television. The production executive for UKTV’s Alibi is Alexandra Finlay, Acquisitions Manager.
Congratulations! Does this make Murdoch Mysteries the most successful Canadian TV export ever??
I believe “ReGenesis” by Shaftsbury is still the most successful, being except around the world.
How do you measure success?
Not sure that is accurate
That’d be my question too – depends how you define success. Rookie Blue would be a contender if it’s ratings.
All I can say is, yay! More money for Shaftesbury from Murdoch = greater chance of more Murdoch past Season 4. I’m a little surprised at the China sale, to be honest… not sure how well 19th century Toronto would appeal. But hey, what do I know? The CCTV folks apparently think it’ll do fine.
Ha, well, The Pretender and the original Colombian Ugly Betty are 2 of their big shows in that international drama block so I think they have eclectic tastes!
Amen!!
congratulations to murdoch mysteries -to yannick and the cast and crew
on the success of the show x
Does anyone know when the reruns of this show are on because I’m not around on Thursday nights at 10:00 pm to watch the first-run episodes? Thanks