(13 October 2005 2:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Television production and distribution firm TWI has secured a raft of deals in advance of the television event Mipcom 2005 for Double Jab’s documentary John Lennon: Working Class Hero.

It has signed deals with Australia’s Nine Network, New Zealand’s TVNZ and DRTV in Denmark. The 90-minute show, which is narrated by Gary Oldman, has already been picked up by the BBC, and deals in the US and Germany are also in the pipeline.

The programme, delivered in the year of Lennon's 65th birthday and the 25th anniversary of his death, contains Yoko Ono's previously unseen collection of personal home movies, rare footage and photos of the Beatles legend, plus her most revealing interview to date. It also includes interviews with Lennon's children, first wife, lover and former contemporaries, and new musical material.

Meanwhile TWI will be bringing the show The Lennon Show to Mipcom 2005. Another show it will bring is Mind of a Demon, a shark adventure with a twist. it will also bring a six half hour episode reality series featuring a Las Vegas defence attorney. This will air under the title of Las Vegas Law on Court TV in the US later this year.

The one hour special Mind of a Demon follows the grandson of intrepid underwater explorer Jacques as he plunges beneath the waves inside a lifesize replica of a Great White Shark to examine the behaviour of the fearsome man-eaters. It has already been sold to American broadcaster CBS.

Bucky offers a behind-the-scenes look at the life of basketball/ rap star Shaquille O’Neal, are among the first projects under the banner of Transend, the brand new joint venture between TWI and Hollywood talent agency Endeavor.

Other new shows TWI also represent include: Hybrid Films’ The Red Orchestra, the story of the largest resistance group operating in Nazi Germany; and The Prestige: Tanker Time Bomb. This is a re-enaction of 2002’s breakup of a fully-laden oil super tanker sparking an environmental crisis and the subsequent salvage operation, made by Cinenova.

TWI original programming that it will showcase at Cannes includes E-Force about an environmental Swat team who tackle anything from toxic spills to alligator rescues. In War of the Wives celebrities in the same profession teach their own wives to do battle against each other. It is already being piloted for Bravo in the US and will be pitched by TWI at Mipcom as a format.

TWI is the television, broadcast and new media arm of the IMG, the world’s premier sports marketing agency, which was acquired last year by Forstmann Little. It claims to be the world’s largest independent producer, packager and distributor of sports programming, producing more than 6,000 hours and distributing nearly 9,000 hours of live events and original programming each year, across 200 countries and covering more than 240 sports.