Northern production company, Workerbee, has seen its turnover increase 46% to £9.44m.
Managing Director, Rick Murray said the results marked the “culmination of many years of work.”
“We have been slowly building our reputation as a global TV company and the big buyers are now taking notice of our content and commissioning from us,” he told Prolific North.
Five years ago, the then Shine North, employed 2 people, it now has 11 staff across offices in Manchester and Leeds.
“There has never been a better time to make TV in the North, but despite the investment and focus we couldn’t do it without our very talented creatives,” he added, before explaining that the arrival of streaming giants had had “a big impact” on the company.
“Traditionally we have worked with the US cable networks so we had established a short hand when dealing with American commissioners which came in very handy when the rise of Netflix, Amazon and most recently Quibi.”
Quibi is the mobile platform established by former Disney and DreamWorks boss, Jeffrey Katzenberg. Workerbee won the UK’s first commission from the firm for its Idris Elba-fronted car stunt show, Elba vs Block, which will be available when the operation launches next month.
Murray explained that while the firm has a long established niche within car and crime programming, it’s also got wider ambitions:
“More TV is being made than ever before, so having a specialist niche in this market is key. Having said that we can make broad TV shows too and with Michelle Chappell joining from Channel 4 last year we have signalled an ambition to conquer mainstream terrestrial.”
