RTÉ sells more than 100 hours of Irish lifestyle TV overseas

TV chef Catherine Fulvio is destined for eastern Europe, architect Dermot Bannon is headed for Australia and the Design Doctors have been picked up in Canada following RTÉ's sale of more than 100 hours of Irish lifestyle television shows to overseas broadcasters.

The series of licensing deals by RTÉ Global, the content sales and format division of RTÉ Television, cover 13 home-produced Irish titles and come in the wake of April's MIP TV, an international television marketplace that takes place in Cannes. RTÉ did not disclose their financial value.

The Bannon-fronted home design programme Room to Improve, made for RTÉ by Coco Television, and InProduction's Kitchen Hero featuring young chef Donal Skehan, have both been sold to Foxtel Australia, a pay-TV company co-owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, in a deal totalling 28 hours of content.

Eight titles

US cable operator

AMC

Networks, meanwhile, has bought eight RTÉ food-related titles via its Budapest-based arm for broadcast in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova. gThese include

Catherine’s Italian Kitchen

,

Catherine’s Roman Holiday

and

Catherine’s Family Kitchen

, all featuring the in-demand Fulvio, as well as

Kevin Dundon’s Modern Irish Food

,

Paul Flynn’s Irish Food

,

How to Cook Well with Rory O’Connell

and two series with Kinsale restaurateur

Martin Shanahan

.

The 52-hour deal with AMC Networks includes Room to Improve, the interior design "challenge" series Roomers and Animo TV's Design Doctors. The latter title was separately acquired alongside How to Cook with Rory O'Connell by Gusto TV in Canada and South Africa's Home Channel.

‘World class’

“We have known for years that our chefs and designers – like our musicians, poets and writers – are world class, but now the rest of the world has discovered it,” said

Edel Edwards

, RTÉ Global’s head of programme sales.