0/5

History Channel commissions Coast Australia

Foxtel has commissioned a local version of Coast to be hosted by British historian Neil Oliver.

2013-01-21_2204Foxtel has commissioned Coast Australia, an Australian version of the British series Coast which airs on SBS.

To be produced by Great Southern Television the 8 x 1 hour series will premiere on The History Channel in the second half of 2013, hosted by British historian Neil Oliver along with Australian experts.

Each episode will target a different strip of Australian coast, its history, people, archaeology, geography, marine life and more, from the Kimberly to the Gold Coast and from Darwin and Tasmania.

Foxtel’s General Manager of Factual Channels, Jim Buchan said “We believe that Coast Australia will be a lasting manuscript on the formation, history, culture and natural beauty of Australia and its people and we are very proud to have a series of this standing in our 2013 schedule.”

Host Neil Oliver said, “I can’t wait to start exploring this extraordinary, fascinating coastline. The prospect of meeting the people, hearing their stories and taking in some of the endless variety of this challenging and stunning country is quite simply a dream job.

“I’m a visitor here and I hope the audience will get a sense of the excitement I feel at having the chance to finally find out what makes Australia such a special place.”

Executive Producer Philip Smith of Great Southern Television said “Coast is accessible on all levels. It has a charming, warm feel, and speaks with the people. The opportunity to examine what we consider the finest coastline in the world is a real honour.”

Coast Australia is currently in production and will go to air on The History Channel in the second half of 2013.

2 Responses

  1. I was excited about this series but it really seems like a bunch of incoherent segways from the beauty of our coast to completely random war history that barely has anything to do with the coast. Meanwhile you have one of Australia’s best environmentalists stick with those stories rather than the natural history which is our coast. A joke they got a British host. Quite disappointed how this was put together. Confusing mix of subject matter with the loose thread of the coast. I agree it’s about token Australian content quotas for Foxtel. It would be nice to see some originality from our Australia production houses and broadcasters!

  2. The mandatory local content quota at work. We get a UK show with its UK presenter. Well at least it isn’t Nickolas Crane.

    Curiously the Wikpedia lists the BBC Season 8 of Coast being in production and that it will be visiting Australia. Are we going to see a battle of the Coasts this year?

    Or is it a co-production with the BBC using a local production company, where the BBC will use some or all of the content and the History channels get to screen it as its local content instead of BBC Knowledge or SBS?

    SBS won’t be happy. They picked up Coast when the ABC passed on it because they thought it was too British and populist and turned it into a successful Friday night stable.

    I’m looking forward to it.

Leave a Reply