Frisky Business – the TV documentary series about Lovehoney – has been bought by eight other countries. The fly-on-the-wall programme was first screened on the Lifetime channel in the UK earlier this year. It is currently airing on Netflix in America and it starts on the free-to-air Australian channel SBS2 on Friday August 29th. Six countries in Europe have also bought rights to the six-part show: SBS Oy (TV5) in Finland, TVN in Poland, Discovery in Netherlands, VTM in Belgium, Metropole in France and TV Norge in Norway.
A crew from Bristol-based production company Oblong Films spent five months filming at Lovehoney’s HQ in Bath. They were given unrestricted access and Lovehoney had no say over the final edit.
Lovehoney co-owner Richard Longhurst [pictured right with, co-owner Neal Slateford] said: “We are delighted that Frisky Business is proving so popular around the world. The key for us was working with such a respected team of film-makers in Oblong. They produced a series which was seriously funny but also a fascinating insight into what really goes on behind the scenes at a fast-growing international e-tailer.”
Lovehoney already has offices in America and Australia and it is continuing to expand into other territories. Lovehoney.de was launched earlier this year and Lovehoney.fr goes live in France in the autumn.
Longhurst added: “A TV series like Frisky Business is a great way to market Lovehoney to a global audience. I would stress, though, that making a TV series is not easy. You have to provide engaging content for the cameras, which means that your staff need to be wholly on board with the whole project. Out of a staff of 130, just two members of the Lovehoney team did not want to be filmed and obviously we respected their wishes. You also have to remember that the cameras may carry on rolling when you don’t want them to. Anyone embarking on a project like this needs to do it with their eyes wide open.”
Oblong also produced the one-off Channel 4 documentary on Lovehoney, More Sex Please, We’re British, which first aired two years ago and was also picked up all over the world. When it was first screened, it brought so much traffic to the Lovehoney website that it crashed.
A spokesman for Oblong said: “It’s great news that Frisky Business is having such an impact globally. It shows how retailers can benefit from collaborating with respected film-makers. We are always looking for interesting companies to work with.”
