BritBox International Names Marketing Boss & Strikes North American Deals For UK Drama ‘The Inheritance’

Jesse Whittock

4 June 2024 at 6:20 am·2-min read

EXCLUSIVE: BritBox International has named Diana Pessin as its Chief Marketing Officer, while striking U.S. and Canada deals for UK drama The Inheritance.

Pessin joined the BBC Studios-owned best-of-British streamer in April 2023 from her consultancy NextPhase Advisors as SVP, Global Marketing and has now been upped. She is best known for a near-20 year run at Warner, where she rose to SVP, Media Strategy, Audience & Analytics and was a key player in the launch of HBO Now and HBO Max.

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She will now oversee all BritBox International marketing, including brand marketing and creative, title campaigns, partner and growth marketing, as well as communications and publicity. She will report to Robert Schildhouse, President of BritBox North America and General Manager of BritBox International, who was recently upped to his role following the news BritBox International CEO Reemah Sakaan was stepping down.

The news also follows BBC Studios’ acquisition of the streamer, buying out ITV’s shares for a cool £255M ($325M) earlier this year. ITV, meanwhile, recently integrated the UK streamer BritBox into the ITVX streaming app.

Since joining BritBox International, Pessin has run campaigns on shows such as Archie, Payback, Murder is Easy and Time and was instrumental in securing a sponsorship deal with BAFTA. She is currently working on a brand refresh and upcoming series Passenger, starring Wumni Mosaku.

“This is a very well-deserved promotion which reflects Diana’s work over the past year in setting our marketing strategy and pulling together a truly brilliant marketing team with a very broad range of expertise,” said Schildhouse. “Diana’s experience in marketing at every stage of the funnel has helped BritBox achieve strong results this year, and under her leadership I am confident that we will continue to grow and expand the BritBox brand globally.”

In further BritBox International news, the streamer has acquired North American rights to The Inheritance, a drama series for Paramount Global-owned broadcaster Channel 5.

A co-production from Night Train Media, Lonesome Pine Productions and Peer Pressure, the show was Channel 5’s top-rated series last year. Distributor Eccho Rights has this week also struck deals with RTE in Ireland, NPO in the Netherlands, and Pickbox in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Bulgaria.

The show stars Robert James Collier (Downtown Abbey), Gaynor Faye (Coronation Street) and Jemima Rooper (The Girlfriend Experience) alongside Larry Lamb (EastEnders), Kevin Whately (Inspector Lewis) and Samantha Bond (Downtown Abbey). It follows three siblings who are left reeling after the unexpected death of their father. When it turns out they are not left anything in the will, they embark on a dangerous journey to figure out whether his death was truly a tragic accident, or whether it was in fact murder.

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