North One
About Us
NORTH ONE – THREE DECADES OF TV - FROM PAUL GASCOIGNE, TO MICHAEL JORDAN, TO LEWIS HAMILTON; FROM FIFTH GEAR, TO THE GADGET SHOW, TO TRAVEL MAN; FROM PAUL HOLLYWOOD, TO JOE LYCETT, TO GUY MARTIN. AND KEANU REEVES.
For the past three decades, North One has been a globally recognised producer of world class factual entertainment, sports and live event TV programming. North One content is shown in over 100 countries worldwide - and its productions are multiple award winners - three BAFTAs and over twenty RTS awards (so far).
More ground-breaking sports contracts followed, with NBA Basketball for Channel 4, Rugby Union for the BBC, global coverage of the World Rally Championship and ITV’s Formula 1 coverage.
Starting out as the sports television wing of the Chrysalis Media Group, the company was responsible for Channel 4’s seminal coverage of Italian football throughout the 1990s, as well as breaking out into factual entertainment with the gigantically successful Saturday night ‘Top Ten’ franchise, which single-handedly invented the ‘list’ genre and saw the company produce over 100 hours of archive documentaries, again for Channel 4.
The company was the first acquisition of what is, today, a global powerhouse – All3Media - becoming North One Television in 2004.
More recently, North One produced worldwide coverage of the Isle of Man TT and currently provides coverage of global race series MotoGP for TNT SPORTS in the UK.
We also have the contract to produce ITV’s NFL coverage – two UK-based live games and live coverage of the global event that is the season’s finale - the Super Bowl.
In popular factual, two long-running consumer brands - car show Fifth Gear and tech series The Gadget Show – have both been in constant production for over two decades. We have produced hundreds of episodes of each show, a new series of Fifth Gear has just launched on Discovery + and Quest, while a new, more domestic facing iteration of consumer tech and gadgets - Shop Smart, Save Money – is into production on a further two series (while a new Gadget Show podcast is into production on its second series, starring legendary former presenters Suzi Perry and Jason Bradbury).
Amongst myriad other programming, North One has scored notable hits on Channel 4 with some sixty hours of programming (so far) with lorry mechanic, motorbike racer and TV daredevil Guy Martin - including his recent, uniquely Guy take on the UK energy crisis – Guy Martin’s Power Trip - and Our Guy in Colombia – an adventure travelogue series that prompted one UK newspaper to ask ‘how did this programme ever get made?’ This year, Guy has learned to fly a jet fighter in Guy Martin : Top Gun and helped to raise another fighter plane, this time a Lancaster, from the bottom of an inland sea, in The Lost WW2 Bomber. Guy is also about to embark on his first series for U&Dave, working in some of the nation’s toughest and most isolated professions, in the four part series, Proper Jobs.
Another long returner for C4 is the BAFTA-nominated comedy travel show, Travel Man, originally hosted by Richard Ayoade, now fronted by Joe Lycett – with a further four part series standing by for transmission in the new year. Also in production for transmission next year, Joe Lycett’s United States of Birmingham, a three part series for Sky, where Joe attempts to forge a bond with every Birmingham in the world (which, handily, are all located in North America), a mission officially sanctioned by Birmingham City Council (UK) and culminating in an international Day of Birmingham in Joe’s beloved hometown.
In the realm of popular history, we also made an anniversary documentary based around the first conflict of the Falklands War – The Forgotten Battle with Ben Fogle, for ITV, and looked at the events of D-Day in a co-production with fellow All3media company, BYO Films - Vicky McClure : My Grandad’s War – also for ITV, which saw the hugely popular actor relive one of the most crucial conflicts of WW2 in the company someone who was actually there - her 97 year old grandfather, Ralph.
We have also launched a host of new brands with other big names. As well as partnering with Paul Hollywood for his Easy Bakes online offerings, we recently made a second series of Paul Hollywood Eats... this time in Mexico, for Channel 4. Also for C4, a new series with Alex Brooker looked at some of the nation’s favourite and more eccentric pasttimes – Hobby Man.
In the realm of access documentary, our new, cutting edge perspective on police access – Sky Coppers - looking at the work of the airborne drone unit of the West Midlands police force – has been a big hit for Channel 4.
For UKTV we have recently had returning brands with Ricky Tomlinson and Ralf Little (Very Northern Road Trip, UKTV Gold) and ex World’s Strongest Man, Eddie Hall (Eddie Eats America and Eddie Eats Christmas, for Dave) and, most recently, looked back at a little bit of TV history in the company of a comedy legend – Paul Whitehouse’s Sketch Show Years.
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We have also revealed Secrets of Your Takeaway and Ready Meals with Alexis Conran for Channel 5, and dropped a paranormal series with Jack Osbourne for Discovery + – Haunted Homecomings.
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And, with another streamer - Disney+ - a show that brings together our expertise in many of the genres in which we are best known – a four-part documentary series telling the fairy tale story of one of the greatest seasons in Formula 1 history – Brawn : The Impossible Formula One Story - fronted and narrated, by the one and only Keanu Reeves.
