TV Sales: sex-starved parrot flies home

Sex starved parrots, 45 Stone Virgins and Half Ton Son have proven to be popular with New Zealand and Australian television broadcasters. At the end of MIPCOM, the international television sales market held in Cannes each year, DCD Rights announced factual sales to Kiwi and Aussie broadcasters.

Stephen Fry’s new series Last Chance To See, in which he and Mark Carwardine track down animals on the edge of extinction has been sold to ABC (Australia), Sky Network (New Zealand) and Madman Entertainment (Australia for DVD).

Well over a million people have now watched the YouTube video of Sirocco the rare Kakapo parrot try to shag zoologist Mark Carwardine’s head as Stephen Fry looks on.

Sirocco now has nearly 4,000 friends on Facebook and a few thousand followers on Twitter.

TLC’s highest rated documentary of 2009, 45 Stone Virgin has been sold to Network Ten (Australia) and TVNZ (New Zealand). The documentary follows thirty-one year old David Smith from Arizona who has gone from a morbidly obese loner to a healthy, happy fitness instructor, losing over 28 stone in weight without gastric bypass surgery.

In other girth-challenged programming, UK's Channel 4 has sold Half Ton Son to Nine and TVNZ. Billy Robbins, the world’s heaviest teenager, makes the decision to turn his life around, undergoing several operations and learning to be completely independent from his mother. Pass the donuts.

If you haven't yet seen Sirocco's antics, this won't be your last chance …
You can find out what other gems of television NZ's networks have planned for us (yes, before they make the official announcements) at <a href="http://www.screenhub.co.nz"target="blank">Screen Hub: Daily jobs and news for film and television professionals</a>.