Tubi hired Mike Bidgoli, a six-year veteran of internet giant Meta, as chief product and technology officer for the Fox-owned free streaming service.
Bidgoli, who reports to CEO Anjali Sud, will be responsible for leading the product and engineering teams overseeing the product experience and innovation strategy for Tubi. Marios Assiotis, who previously served as Tubi’s Cto, earlier this year moved over to Adrise, the audience network and ad tech platform that Fox acquired as part of the Tubi deal in 2020. Meanwhile, Michael Ahiakpor, formerly Tubi’s chief product officer, said he left the company in April after 11 years with the company “to focus on my health and happiness.”
Bidgoli most recently served as head of product for new monetization experiences at Meta, where he was responsible for the company’s subscription strategy and ad products including Meta Verified. Prior to that, he led development of video products at Facebook,...
Bidgoli, who reports to CEO Anjali Sud, will be responsible for leading the product and engineering teams overseeing the product experience and innovation strategy for Tubi. Marios Assiotis, who previously served as Tubi’s Cto, earlier this year moved over to Adrise, the audience network and ad tech platform that Fox acquired as part of the Tubi deal in 2020. Meanwhile, Michael Ahiakpor, formerly Tubi’s chief product officer, said he left the company in April after 11 years with the company “to focus on my health and happiness.”
Bidgoli most recently served as head of product for new monetization experiences at Meta, where he was responsible for the company’s subscription strategy and ad products including Meta Verified. Prior to that, he led development of video products at Facebook,...
- 5/14/2024
- by Todd Spangler
- Variety Film + TV
It has been a while since “The Queen’s Gambit,” but as proven by “Rematch,” viewers’ love for chess is certainly not diminishing.
The show, dedicated to confrontation between famous chess player Garry Kasparov and Ibm’s supercomputer Deep Blue, was named the winner at Series Mania.
A somewhat lukewarm reception of “Apples Never Fall” didn’t stop Annette Bening from being crowned as best actress. The Peacock offering, also featuring Sam Neill and Alison Brie, is the latest adaptation of “Big Little Lies” and “Nine Perfect Strangers” scribe Liane Moriarty. Now showing a perfect family who, following its matriarch’s disappearance, needs to face some uncomfortable questions. Including this one: Did their beloved father have something to do with it?
Jury member Berenice Bejo read out a brief message of thanks from Bening who described the series as a “labor of love.”
Kamel El Basha, who plays the more progressive...
The show, dedicated to confrontation between famous chess player Garry Kasparov and Ibm’s supercomputer Deep Blue, was named the winner at Series Mania.
A somewhat lukewarm reception of “Apples Never Fall” didn’t stop Annette Bening from being crowned as best actress. The Peacock offering, also featuring Sam Neill and Alison Brie, is the latest adaptation of “Big Little Lies” and “Nine Perfect Strangers” scribe Liane Moriarty. Now showing a perfect family who, following its matriarch’s disappearance, needs to face some uncomfortable questions. Including this one: Did their beloved father have something to do with it?
Jury member Berenice Bejo read out a brief message of thanks from Bening who described the series as a “labor of love.”
Kamel El Basha, who plays the more progressive...
- 3/22/2024
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Forget “Saltburn” – now, it’s up to BBC Three’s series “Boarders” to take an honest look at Britain’s most exclusive private schools.
“You hear so many horror stories about these places, but it’s a rite of passage. So many of our PMs and people of power went there. I think there is something called ‘boarding school syndrome’ when you deal with politicians who exhibit complete lack of compassion. That’s what they learnt there,” explains Daniel Lawrence Taylor, who created the show.
His actor, Josh Tedeku, agrees.
“I went to Oxford recently and there is a similar vibe. My friend would say: ‘This is where Boris Johnson went, this is where Rishi Sunak went.’ You start to understand why they are all so loopy.”
“I loved the place, they shot ‘Harry Potter’ there and I was just nerding out. Then, I met someone who watched ‘Boarders’ and...
“You hear so many horror stories about these places, but it’s a rite of passage. So many of our PMs and people of power went there. I think there is something called ‘boarding school syndrome’ when you deal with politicians who exhibit complete lack of compassion. That’s what they learnt there,” explains Daniel Lawrence Taylor, who created the show.
His actor, Josh Tedeku, agrees.
“I went to Oxford recently and there is a similar vibe. My friend would say: ‘This is where Boris Johnson went, this is where Rishi Sunak went.’ You start to understand why they are all so loopy.”
“I loved the place, they shot ‘Harry Potter’ there and I was just nerding out. Then, I met someone who watched ‘Boarders’ and...
- 3/22/2024
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Boarders, a comedy/drama series released on Tubi in early 2024, brings a cast full of rising stars playing a group of intriguing new characters.
Tubi's new Boarders series highlights five underprivileged Black students from the inner-city areas of London who are awarded scholarships to an elite boarding school as they leave the comforts of home.
There, they move from a more urban metropolis setting to a huge castle with their fellow students, embracing an environment unlike anything they have ever seen before. Consisting of six episodes, Boarders first came to BBC Three on February 20 before moving to the free Tubi website on March 8.
Read full article on The Direct.
Tubi's new Boarders series highlights five underprivileged Black students from the inner-city areas of London who are awarded scholarships to an elite boarding school as they leave the comforts of home.
There, they move from a more urban metropolis setting to a huge castle with their fellow students, embracing an environment unlike anything they have ever seen before. Consisting of six episodes, Boarders first came to BBC Three on February 20 before moving to the free Tubi website on March 8.
Read full article on The Direct.
- 3/11/2024
- by Richard Nebens
- The Direct
While the perils of higher education are becoming a wider part of the conversation, namely its lack of guarantee and exorbitant cost (particularly in America), solid academic preparation for the future is still often a ticket to a more expansive life. In Tubi’s “Boarders,” created by BAFTA-nominated screenwriter Daniel Lawrence Taylor, five Black teens from London’s inner city uproot their lives for the opportunity to attend St. Gilbert’s College, a prestigious boarding school in the U.K. Though the scholarship recipients are eager to begin paving a new path for themselves, the constant othering, feelings of isolation and fetishism begin coloring what should be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The Black students experience gutting racial and economic adversity, but the brilliance of “Boarders” is its ability to weave a rhythmic humor throughout the series.
Before I get into the specifics of “Boarders,” first a note about its curious origins.
Before I get into the specifics of “Boarders,” first a note about its curious origins.
- 3/8/2024
- by Aramide Tinubu
- Variety Film + TV
In the British teen dramedy Boarders, five Black students of great intelligence, but modest means, are given scholarships to the elite private school St. Gilbert’s. Their presence has little to do with altruism, and a lot to do with the school’s PR problem, after a rich white student posts a video of himself and his friends harassing an unhoused man. Gus (played by Daniel Lawrence Taylor, who also created the series) runs the charity that helped select the five lucky kids, and while all of them are aware...
- 3/8/2024
- by Alan Sepinwall
- Rollingstone.com
A good high-school or college TV show is like a time machine, designed to transport nostalgic older viewers backward to youth or (more rarely) younger viewers forward to an anticipated maturity. At the same time, it’s a sufficiently codified genre that the nostalgia is as much for other fictional favorites in the same narrative space as it is for any “real” experience of high school or college.
A well-cast high-school or college TV show is a time machine on yet another level, enjoyable in its immediacy but also a preview for decades of future ensembles. Even if the breakouts from a Freaks and Geeks or Sex Education or Dear White People aren’t always the stars you’d expect, one needn’t watch more than a scene or two to know how well-populated those shows are.
Daniel Lawrence Taylor’s new prep-school dramedy Boarders — produced for BBC Three and...
A well-cast high-school or college TV show is a time machine on yet another level, enjoyable in its immediacy but also a preview for decades of future ensembles. Even if the breakouts from a Freaks and Geeks or Sex Education or Dear White People aren’t always the stars you’d expect, one needn’t watch more than a scene or two to know how well-populated those shows are.
Daniel Lawrence Taylor’s new prep-school dramedy Boarders — produced for BBC Three and...
- 3/7/2024
- by Daniel Fienberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Enough with the winter gloom: Feel-good shows are about to take over TV market London Screenings, as distributors echo Russell Crowe’s Maximus iconic words: “Are you not entertained?”
“Most platforms are looking for entertaining shows. Escapism is a big thing,” says Fremantle International CEO Jens Richter.
“You want to take the audience somewhere else and make sure they forget about their reality for a minute. ‘We want to entertain you.’ That’s the headline, basically.”
Beta Group’s chief distribution officer Oliver Bachert agrees – in a world challenged by many conflicts, watching something “accessible and easy” feels more appealing than ever.
“We see things that are maybe not that ambitious, but they work as entertainment. A bit of blue sky helps us deal with everyday news. Even up north, Nordic Noir just got lighter.”
Crime and thrillers are still “major export genres,” notices Rachel Glaister of All3Media International, but...
“Most platforms are looking for entertaining shows. Escapism is a big thing,” says Fremantle International CEO Jens Richter.
“You want to take the audience somewhere else and make sure they forget about their reality for a minute. ‘We want to entertain you.’ That’s the headline, basically.”
Beta Group’s chief distribution officer Oliver Bachert agrees – in a world challenged by many conflicts, watching something “accessible and easy” feels more appealing than ever.
“We see things that are maybe not that ambitious, but they work as entertainment. A bit of blue sky helps us deal with everyday news. Even up north, Nordic Noir just got lighter.”
Crime and thrillers are still “major export genres,” notices Rachel Glaister of All3Media International, but...
- 2/27/2024
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
As an over-40 on the Gen X/Millennial cusp, modern teenagers unsettle me. On screen. On buses. On the street with their midriff out and no coat on. I feel a powerful urge both to protect them and for them to stay 100 metres away from me at all times. Watching modern teen TV as a non-teen feels suspect, like eating Farleys Rusks with a full set of adult teeth.
Watching BBC Three comedy-drama Boarders then, which is set at the sixth form of a swanky English private school, I was primed to feel like a chaperone at a prom – unwelcome, uncomfortable and wishing to God there was a bar. What I actually felt was joy.
Created by Timewasters’ Daniel Lawrence Taylor and inspired by a news article about an elite, majority-white UK boarding school offering scholarship places to clever young Black students from underprivileged backgrounds, Boarders is shrewd, funny and well-cast.
Watching BBC Three comedy-drama Boarders then, which is set at the sixth form of a swanky English private school, I was primed to feel like a chaperone at a prom – unwelcome, uncomfortable and wishing to God there was a bar. What I actually felt was joy.
Created by Timewasters’ Daniel Lawrence Taylor and inspired by a news article about an elite, majority-white UK boarding school offering scholarship places to clever young Black students from underprivileged backgrounds, Boarders is shrewd, funny and well-cast.
- 2/20/2024
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Get ready for the highly anticipated premiere of “Boarders” as Season 1 Episode 1 debuts at 9:00 Pm on Tuesday, February 20, 2024, on BBC Three. In this captivating first episode, viewers will be introduced to five teens navigating the challenges of life at their new school.
As Jaheim finds himself at odds with troublemaker Rupert, tensions rise and conflicts ensue. Meanwhile, Leah clashes with the headmaster, adding to the drama unfolding within the school’s walls. Omar is determined to prove the existence of a secret society, while Femi discovers unlikely friendships and is drawn into a bizarre school ritual.
Amidst the chaos, Toby faces judgment from his peers but uses it to his advantage to impress a girl, showcasing his resourcefulness and determination. With compelling storylines and engaging characters, “Boarders” promises to be a rollercoaster ride of drama, friendship, and self-discovery.
Don’t miss out on the excitement of the series premiere...
As Jaheim finds himself at odds with troublemaker Rupert, tensions rise and conflicts ensue. Meanwhile, Leah clashes with the headmaster, adding to the drama unfolding within the school’s walls. Omar is determined to prove the existence of a secret society, while Femi discovers unlikely friendships and is drawn into a bizarre school ritual.
Amidst the chaos, Toby faces judgment from his peers but uses it to his advantage to impress a girl, showcasing his resourcefulness and determination. With compelling storylines and engaging characters, “Boarders” promises to be a rollercoaster ride of drama, friendship, and self-discovery.
Don’t miss out on the excitement of the series premiere...
- 2/14/2024
- by Posts UK
- TV Everyday
International television festival Series Mania unveiled its 2024 lineup Wednesday, with an impressive slate of world premieres that will grace the screens of Lille, France for the event running March 19-21.
Peacock’s Australia-set family drama Apples Never Fall, featuring Nyad Oscar nominee Annette Bening and Jurassic Park veteran Sam Neill as a dysfunctional couple, will screen in competition at year’s fest, as will MGM+’s Hotel Cocaine, from Narcos showrunner Chris Brancato, a crime thriller featuring The Shield star Michael Chiklis and set in the booming cocaine scene in Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
So Long Marianne, a Canadian-Norwegian co-production from Crave and Norway’s Nrk, will also get its first screening in Lille. The series stars Oppenheimer supporting actor Alex Wolff as legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen in a story of his turbulent relationship with Norwegian writer Marianne Ihlen (played by The Last Kingdom‘s Thea Sofie Loch Næss...
Peacock’s Australia-set family drama Apples Never Fall, featuring Nyad Oscar nominee Annette Bening and Jurassic Park veteran Sam Neill as a dysfunctional couple, will screen in competition at year’s fest, as will MGM+’s Hotel Cocaine, from Narcos showrunner Chris Brancato, a crime thriller featuring The Shield star Michael Chiklis and set in the booming cocaine scene in Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
So Long Marianne, a Canadian-Norwegian co-production from Crave and Norway’s Nrk, will also get its first screening in Lille. The series stars Oppenheimer supporting actor Alex Wolff as legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen in a story of his turbulent relationship with Norwegian writer Marianne Ihlen (played by The Last Kingdom‘s Thea Sofie Loch Næss...
- 2/7/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Peacock’s Apples Never Fall, MGM+’s Hotel Cocaine and Nrk’s buzzy drama about Leonard Cohen, So Long, Marianne will be in the International Competition race at Series Mania in March.
The shows will be up against BBC Three’s UK series Boarders, France 2 drama Dans L’Ombre (In the Shadows), Ard’s German series Herrhausen, the Banker and the Bomb, ABC Australia’s House of Gods, and Franco-Hungarian co-production Rematch, which is for Arte, Disney+ and HBO Europe.
The shows comprise an interesting cross-section of U.S. and European projects, with the Annette Bening-starring thriller Apples Never Fall among the highest profile. Hotel Cocaine, about a Cuban expatriate who re-made his life in Miami, is among MGM+’s biggest recent bets, while So Long, Marianne has been building steam as a study into the life of singer-songwriter Cohen and his muse, Marianne Ihlen.
The shows will be up against BBC Three’s UK series Boarders, France 2 drama Dans L’Ombre (In the Shadows), Ard’s German series Herrhausen, the Banker and the Bomb, ABC Australia’s House of Gods, and Franco-Hungarian co-production Rematch, which is for Arte, Disney+ and HBO Europe.
The shows comprise an interesting cross-section of U.S. and European projects, with the Annette Bening-starring thriller Apples Never Fall among the highest profile. Hotel Cocaine, about a Cuban expatriate who re-made his life in Miami, is among MGM+’s biggest recent bets, while So Long, Marianne has been building steam as a study into the life of singer-songwriter Cohen and his muse, Marianne Ihlen.
- 2/7/2024
- by Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
Lille-based Series Mania, Europe’s biggest TV festival and forum, has revealed its impressive 2024 main competition, which includes three U.S. streamer bows – from Peacock, and MGM+ and Disney+/HBO Europe world premieres.
The starry lineup features, for example, the much-anticipated new Liane Moriarty adaptation “Apples Never Fall” with Annette Bening as the matriarch who suddenly disappears, leaving her picture-perfect family in disarray. Currently celebrating Oscar nomination for “Nyad,” Bening is joined in the series be by Sam Neill and Alison Brie.
Alex Wolff, recently spotted in another Oscar hopeful “Oppenheimer,” will put on his deepest voice for “So Long, Marianne” about the tumultuous relationship between Leonard Cohen and Norwegian writer Marianne Ihlen, from Norway’s Nrk.
With Wolff currently set to attend, Zal Batmanglij – behind Netflix’s “The Oa” – “The Artist’s” Bérénice Bejo, “Gossip Girl” alumni Kelly Rutherford, novelist Douglas Kennedy and France’s Laurent Lafitte will also deliver masterclasses.
The starry lineup features, for example, the much-anticipated new Liane Moriarty adaptation “Apples Never Fall” with Annette Bening as the matriarch who suddenly disappears, leaving her picture-perfect family in disarray. Currently celebrating Oscar nomination for “Nyad,” Bening is joined in the series be by Sam Neill and Alison Brie.
Alex Wolff, recently spotted in another Oscar hopeful “Oppenheimer,” will put on his deepest voice for “So Long, Marianne” about the tumultuous relationship between Leonard Cohen and Norwegian writer Marianne Ihlen, from Norway’s Nrk.
With Wolff currently set to attend, Zal Batmanglij – behind Netflix’s “The Oa” – “The Artist’s” Bérénice Bejo, “Gossip Girl” alumni Kelly Rutherford, novelist Douglas Kennedy and France’s Laurent Lafitte will also deliver masterclasses.
- 2/7/2024
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Squid Game: The Challenge producer Studio Lambert has promoted a trio of senior execs as drama boss Sue Hogg steps back from the day to day.
Longserving Squid Game: The Challenge EP Tim Harcourt is being upped to Chief Creative Officer, Gogglebox exec Mike Cotton takes on Creative Director (Unscripted) and Maddie Sinclair, the exec behind BBC Three’s upcoming Boarders comedy-drama, is promoted to Creative Director (Scripted).
Sinclair’s promotion comes with Hogg, the founder of Studio Lambert’s drama department nearly a decade ago, choosing to step back from her full-time role to focus on individual projects, including Boarders. She will take on the new post of Creative Consultant. Since joining, Hogg has helmed the likes of BBC trio Three Girls, Three Families and The Nest, along with Amazon Prime Video’s The Feed. Drama is a focus for Studio Lambert and CEO Stephen Lambert told...
Longserving Squid Game: The Challenge EP Tim Harcourt is being upped to Chief Creative Officer, Gogglebox exec Mike Cotton takes on Creative Director (Unscripted) and Maddie Sinclair, the exec behind BBC Three’s upcoming Boarders comedy-drama, is promoted to Creative Director (Scripted).
Sinclair’s promotion comes with Hogg, the founder of Studio Lambert’s drama department nearly a decade ago, choosing to step back from her full-time role to focus on individual projects, including Boarders. She will take on the new post of Creative Consultant. Since joining, Hogg has helmed the likes of BBC trio Three Girls, Three Families and The Nest, along with Amazon Prime Video’s The Feed. Drama is a focus for Studio Lambert and CEO Stephen Lambert told...
- 12/11/2023
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
A cast of emerging talent has been set for BBC comedy-drama “Boarders,” from Daniel Lawrence Taylor, creator of the BAFTA nominated “Timewasters.”
The 6 x 45′ series produced by Studio Lambert (“The Nest”) in association with All3Media International, follows the lives of five talented underprivileged Black students from inner-city London who win scholarships to St. Gilbert’s, an elite boarding school. Stepping out of the urban metropolis, they experience the highs and lows of boarding school, learn about themselves, their identity and what life on the other side looks like.
“Boarders” will star Josh Tedeku (“Supacell”), Jodie Campbell (“Bulletproof”) and Myles Kamwendo (“The School for Good and Evil”) alongside Sekou Diaby and Aruna Jalloh, both making their screen debuts. Lawrence Taylor will play a mentor figure to the students.
The cast also includes Derek Riddell (“Happy Valley”), Niky Wardley (“Queen of Oz”), Harry Gilby (“Tolkien”), Tallulah Grieve (“Our Ladies”), Rosie Graham (“The School for Good and Evil...
The 6 x 45′ series produced by Studio Lambert (“The Nest”) in association with All3Media International, follows the lives of five talented underprivileged Black students from inner-city London who win scholarships to St. Gilbert’s, an elite boarding school. Stepping out of the urban metropolis, they experience the highs and lows of boarding school, learn about themselves, their identity and what life on the other side looks like.
“Boarders” will star Josh Tedeku (“Supacell”), Jodie Campbell (“Bulletproof”) and Myles Kamwendo (“The School for Good and Evil”) alongside Sekou Diaby and Aruna Jalloh, both making their screen debuts. Lawrence Taylor will play a mentor figure to the students.
The cast also includes Derek Riddell (“Happy Valley”), Niky Wardley (“Queen of Oz”), Harry Gilby (“Tolkien”), Tallulah Grieve (“Our Ladies”), Rosie Graham (“The School for Good and Evil...
- 7/19/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Benjamin Zephaniah’s memoir Life and Rhymes is being developed into a TV series by Baby Cow and Timewasters creator Daniel Lawrence Taylor.
The project forms part of a funded development slate from Steve Coogan’s indie, unveiled by CEO Sarah Monteith to Deadline earlier this week, which also features shows about Margaret Thatcher and forensic scientist Patricia Wiltshire.
The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah tells the story of the celebrated poet, artist, activist and Peaky Blinders actor who was born into poverty and produced radical poetry that led him to perform in every continent of the world, meeting the likes of Nelson Mandela and The Wailers along the way.
Sarah Monteith. Image: Baby Cow
BAFTA-winning Timewasters creator Lawrence Taylor is developing with Zephaniah on the show that is in late-stage development with a yet-to-be-revealed UK broadcaster.
Having been elevated to CEO two years ago, Monteith said Life...
The project forms part of a funded development slate from Steve Coogan’s indie, unveiled by CEO Sarah Monteith to Deadline earlier this week, which also features shows about Margaret Thatcher and forensic scientist Patricia Wiltshire.
The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah tells the story of the celebrated poet, artist, activist and Peaky Blinders actor who was born into poverty and produced radical poetry that led him to perform in every continent of the world, meeting the likes of Nelson Mandela and The Wailers along the way.
Sarah Monteith. Image: Baby Cow
BAFTA-winning Timewasters creator Lawrence Taylor is developing with Zephaniah on the show that is in late-stage development with a yet-to-be-revealed UK broadcaster.
Having been elevated to CEO two years ago, Monteith said Life...
- 5/11/2023
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
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