Inspector Morse producer Carlton will co-fund productions Originally published in Current, July 2, 2001 By Steve Behrens The big British broadcaster Carlton, maker of the recently departed Inspector Morse mysteries, has committed $10 million over three years to produce programs for broadcast on American public TV and for its distribution in other countries. CPB and PBS together will match Carlton's investment. The first grants may go toward PBS's hoped-for American stories for a "reinvigorated" Mystery!, PBS President Pat Mitchell announced during the network's annual meeting last month in Philadelphia. Indeed, pubcasters were seeking rights to adapt Tony Hillerman police stories, which feature Navajo detectives, said Coby Atlas, co-chief program executive. News reports of a Hillerman deal were "premature," she said. [The reports came to pass in 2002.] But Atlas doubts the partners would spend even as much as half of the new production fund on Mystery! The money will go to various multipart projects by station and independent producers, she said. Terry Bryant, v.p. for TV and digital media at CPB, said the U.S. pubcasters had talked with Carlton about such nonfiction proposals as Find Your Family, a genealogy series, and DaVinci's Machines, in which present-day technicians attempt to build some of Leonardo's inventions. The partners will back "programming that has international potential, but may be very American indeed," said Rupert Dilnott Cooper, chief exec of Carlton International Media Group. To get programs with more U.S. appeal, public TV will pay half the cost of production — a bigger share than for most acquisitions from Britain. To make one of its more expensive shows, Inspector Morse, Carlton was spending $3 million for a two-hour movie, Dilnott Cooper said. Mystery! "doesn't pay anything like half" of that to buy a Morse. Mitchell credited CPB President Bob Coonrod and Executive Vice President Fred DeMarco for pursing the deal. It grew out of a study of the international production market funded by the CPB Future Fund, said Coonrod. The study by consultant Dennis Kostyk started to look into foreign sales of U.S. programs, but switched its focus to co-productions. "It became clear the best returns would be focusing more on the early stages of programming deals," says Andy Russell, CPB's senior v.p. of media. The study concentrated on English-language producers and eventually examined eight firms and then four: Carlton, BBC, Channel 4 and Granada. "Carlton emerged as the most attractive partner," Russell said, but the Americans have improved their working relationships with the others as well. Under the nonexclusive pact, Carlton will hold foreign distribution rights to co-funded programs. PBS will hold U.S. broadcast and home video rights. If either Carlton or CPB/PBS earns more in its territory than it invested in a program, they will share the proceeds, Russell said. Carlton is one of Britain's two biggest commercial TV producers and broadcasters, and it co-owns the ITV Network with Granada, the other big one. It markets 18,000 hours of British movies, Cadfael, Kavanagh QC, the recent Oliver Twist on Masterpiece Theatre, and other TV series, and a Los Angeles arm makes network movies such as Tuesdays with Morrie for ABC and Oprah Winfrey's Amy & Isabel. The company operates broadcast franchises in the central (Birmingham), southwest (Plymouth) and London (weekdays only) regions.

	To Current's home page
	Later news: With Carlton backing, producer begins filming a Tony Hillerman novel for Mystery!, 2002.
	Outside link: Website of Carlton International Media Group.

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