
Bodyguard entertains new audiences during lockdown
Second Window rights to BBC One's Most-Watched Drama Since Records Began Snapped Up by Worldwide Buyers
2 June 2020 - Created by Jed Mercurio and produced by World Productions for BBC One and Netflix, the Golden Globe and BAFTA award-winning Bodyguard is making its way around the world for a second time following a flurry of deals with international broadcasters brokered by ITV Studios.
Applauded by critics the world over, second window rights to the six-part event TV series have been acquired by Seven Network in Australia, Vision TV in English-speaking Canada, Telequebec in French-speaking Canada, TVB in Hong Kong, Tohokushinsha Japan, Cineplex Thailand, CJ&M South Korea, TVNZ in New Zealand, France 2, ZDF and Edel Germany, RAI Italy, Paramount Network Spain, Friday! TV Channel Russia, RTS for French-speaking Switzerland, Virgin Media Ireland, HRT Croatia, RTV Slovenia, Latvian TV and Lithuanian Radio and Television. Sitting outside of Netflix's global footprint, China's Huanxi acquired the show in May last year.
Ruth Berry, Managing Director, Global Distribution at ITV Studios, said:
Bodyguard is a drama which needs little introduction, we're honoured to represent one of the UK's most phenomenal hits thanks to the brilliance of Jed Mercurio and World Productions and are delighted that it is being enjoyed by an even wider audience as a result of these additional sales.
ITV Studios has sold a range of its new, returning and classic scripted titles to international broadcasters in recent months. Sony Liv in India has acquired the BBC One dramas World on Fire, Noughts + Crosses (Mammoth Screen), The War of the Worlds (Mammoth Screen and Creasun), Oscar-nominated Jeff Pope's A Confession (ITV Studios Factual Drama for ITV), as well as all seasons of Agatha Christie's Poirot (a co-production of ITV Studios and WGBH Boston in association with Agatha Christie Ltd.) and Miss Marple (ITV Studios for ITV).
Seasons 1 - 5 of Mammoth Screen's Poldark have been picked up in China (AMC Encore), Russia (Yandex) and Greece (ERT); and seasons 1 - 6 of Endeavour in Korea (KTH) and South East Asia (BBC Player). Calamity Films' hit comedy for Sky, Brassic has been acquired in Russia (Yandex), Spain (Filmin), South East Asia (BBC Player), Korea (KTH) and Australia (ABC Comedy). Seasons 1-6 of the multi award-winning comedy from Eugene Levy and Daniel Levy Schitt's Creek (Not A Real Company Productions Inc. for CBC and Pop) have been sold to Scandinavia in a pan-regional deal with CMORE/TV4. Isolation Stories, a collection of four stories produced by Jeff Pope Drama during lockdown, has been acquired in Israel (DBS), Belgium (VRT) and Korea (KT Corp.)
The recipient of more that 15 prestigious awards globally and the BBC's biggest drama launch in more than a decade, the finale of Bodyguard consolidated to 15.2m (including non-TV viewing) making it the most watched drama since current records begun.
Bodyguard tells the fictional story of David Budd (Richard Madden), a heroic but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch of London's Metropolitan Police Service. When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), whose politics stand for everything he despises, Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, is he actually her biggest threat?
Bodyguard was created and written by Jed Mercurio (Line of Duty) who also serves as executive producer alongside Simon Heath (Line of Duty, Save Me). It is directed by Thomas Vincent (The Tunnel) and John Strickland (Line of Duty, Bodies) and produced by Priscilla Parish (Line of Duty) and Eric Coulter (Shetland, Our Girl).
[end]
About ITV Studios
ITV Studios is a creator, producer and distributor of world-leading programmes that people can't get enough of. We connect millions of people every day and shape and reflect the world they live in, we are More Than TV.
ITV Studios is home to some of the best creative minds, crafting over 8,400 hours of original programming across 55 production labels. Our global footprint spans 13 countries including the UK, US, Australia, France, Germany, The Nordics, Italy and the Netherlands and our global distribution business sells our catalogue of 46,000+ hours to broadcasters and platforms around the world.
ITV Studios is part of ITV PLC, which includes the UK's largest commercial broadcaster.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
17/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/07/2026
Foundry Releases SmartRoto for Nuke
Brie Clayton July 17, 2026
0 Comments
Spline-based AI powered plugin accelerates time-consuming rotoscoping, helping...
17/07/2026
A Short Documentary About a Giant Pencil Edited with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton July 17, 2026
0 Comments
SBIFF jury award winner finished fro...
17/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/07/2026
Lightware has published its second voluntary Sustainability Report, showing how energy efficiency, product longevity and responsible material use are increasing...
17/07/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced Griptape Enterprise, a new tier of the Griptape AI workflow orchestration platform, extended to meet the str...
17/07/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the availability of SmartRoto, a new AI-powered plugin upgrade for Nuke, NukeX, Nuke Studio, and Nuke Indie ...
17/07/2026
The Final Release of Blackmagic Fairlight Live is Now Available!
Brie Clayton July 16, 2026
0 Comments
Fairlight Live is a new audio mixer designed fo...
17/07/2026
Leveraging All of Entertainment's IP
Andy Marken July 16, 2026
0 Comments
Nobody ever wins the games. Period. There are survivors. There\s no win...
17/07/2026
From intimate acoustic settings to large-scale festival stages, her focus has remained constant: preserving the true natural voice of the violin in every perfor...
17/07/2026
New and returning series, live festival broadcasts, powerful documentaries and major sporting moments headline RT Radio 1's summer schedule
RT Radio 1 is...
17/07/2026
Think of a professional athlete. What separates elite performers is what happens...
17/07/2026
Up For The Match - Live From Croke Park this Saturday at 8pm on RT One and RT ...
17/07/2026
RT Commercial has today announced DiscoverIreland.ie, as sponsor of The Traitor...
16/07/2026
Media organisations with tested plans for new products, services or revenue models can now apply for grants of up to 30,000 through the Business Innovation Syn...
16/07/2026
This recent graduate and Georgia native has turned an early fascination with live production into a growing passion for camera work
In the live-sports-video in...
16/07/2026
TNDV is marking the first anniversary of Aspiration 35, a mobile production truck built around ARRI Alexa 35 Live camera systems. Over its first year, the truck...
16/07/2026
ATSC has completed a major revision to its A/85 Recommended Practice: Techniques...
16/07/2026
FloSports has announced an exclusive global media partnership with CrossFit for the 2026 CrossFit Games, presented by Air National Guard, beginning July 21 in S...
16/07/2026
Sennheiser has released firmware version 1.4 for its Spectera wireless system and announced the Spectera Command Button (Cat. No. 701014). The update adds comma...
16/07/2026
ESPN and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) have announced a multi-year...
16/07/2026
Audio-Technica has announced the 20 Series Control Application, a Stream Deck plug-in for compatible Audio-Technica USB microphones. The application is compatib...
16/07/2026
The fifteenth season of The Voice - La plus belle voix on TF1 used four Solid St...
16/07/2026
Gray Media and the Atlanta Hawks have announced a broadcast partnership that wil...
16/07/2026
Season 3 of Netflix's docuseries, which dropped this week, follows Jayden Da...
16/07/2026
The Texas Rangers and Rangers Sports Network presented by Progressive (RSN) have announced BZZR as the new direct-to-consumer distributor for Rangers game broad...
16/07/2026
With England's FIFA World Cup 2026 team getting ready to fly home after losi...
16/07/2026
In a return to Royal Birkdale, the team enjoys partnering with ETP and Gravity M...
16/07/2026
Along with a new studio at Ball Arena, the Colorado-based RSN is working with XR...
16/07/2026
Austria was back at the World Cup for the first time in 28 years, and the team d...
16/07/2026
With 42 RF cameras and high-power radio mics deployed, the spectrum environment ...
16/07/2026
A new benchmark in bass enhancement
Described as a new benchmark in bass enhancement , Baby Audio's latest release has been designed to augment the lo...
16/07/2026
Popular library rebuilt in new Orbita Engine
Other Worlds Evolved is the latest of Zero G's sample libraries to be treated to a ground-up rebuild using ...
16/07/2026
Created in collaboration with A. G. Cook
The newest addition to Native Instruments' software collection introduces a new synth created by A. G. Cook, a ...
16/07/2026
NITV and SBS bring Australians to the heart of Garma
16 July, 2026
Media releases
The Garma Festival returns from 31 July-3 August, with NITV and SBS deliv...
16/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz supplies conformance test systems to Marquistech for India's...
16/07/2026
June brought stabilization to the television market. Poles spent an average of 3 hours and 36 minutes a day in front of their TV screens exactly the same as i...
16/07/2026
Glensound returns to IBC with a major new addition to its intelligent loudspeaker range, the Greater Divine Supernal studio monitor, alongside recent developmen...
16/07/2026
33 leading exhibitors are taking part in the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Pavilions and linked locations across IBC2026 (Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September)...
16/07/2026
Hitomi Broadcast will introduce Spectra, a new HDR colour verification solution measured in picture, not using VPID, at IBC2026 (Hall 10, Stand A40). Expanding ...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...