Press release by Debra (MTA Productions LTD)©
Most production companies who want to get a sitcom onto television follow a set path. Have an idea. Make a pilot. Pitch it. And keep on pitching it. Hopefully it will get picked up. But what happens if, like TV Producer and director Debra Odutuyo, it doesn’t get picked up even though you know you have a hit show on your hands and you have a hungry and waiting audience?
Well, you create your own production company, raise money yourself, leave the mainstream commissioners behind and hit the world of social media to engage directly with your audience.
This is what South London-based MTA Productions – the dynamic production team created by two enterprising 26 year old Britons: Andrew Osayemi, a former trader, and Debra Odutuyo, a TV producer – has done.
On Sunday 26th June, at least 100,000 British viewers are expected to head to www.MeetTheAdebanjos.com, to officially meet the hilarious Adebanjo family, a fictional British Nigerian family who will put a new face to British sitcoms.
Meet The Adebanjo’s is MTA Productions’ first broadcast-quality online sitcom. It features a cast of loud and unforgettable characters, and highlights the multi-generational and multi-cultural family dynamics that take place when traditional African parents raise British-born children.
These families exist all over the UK, yet remain unrepresented on mainstream television. Meet The Adebanjo’s is more than just a show, though – it’s a movement. The show’s makers – Osayemi and Odutuyo – want to let the UK’s TV establishment know that the market for British TV is strong, vibrant and hungry for content that speaks about a unique British experience. And if the old boys club won’t let them in, they’re going to do it for themselves.
“For the past five years I have been working on this project and trying to sell the concept of the sitcom to mainstream broadcasters in the UK,” says Odutuyo. “After countless rejections, I resolved not to give up on my dream by spending the last two years doing everything I possibly could do to raise money to film eight episodes. I eventually raised enough money from private investors to produce a broadcast quality show.” That show is Meet The Adebanjo’s.
The Meet The Adebanjo’s team is now using the power of the internet and social media – Facebook, YouTube and www.MeetTheAdebanjos.com – to provide an avenue which independent production companies can create their own content and independently distribute direct to their market. Already, the “leaked” show’s trailer – released just one week ago – has commanded over 20,000 youtube views and thousands of positive comments.
The team is currently urging fans and supporters to get firmly behind the movement and spread the word about Meet the Adebanjo’s far and wide as the more views the show gets the more commercial advertisers will be attracted to invest in advertising in quality independent online sitcoms. Hopefully this is just what the UK’s TV establishment needs to sit up and pay attention.
Odutuyo says, The response for the show has been amazing. This just goes to show what can be achieved if you dare to be different and think outside the box. MTA Productions have lots more productions that we are working on and similar to Meet The Adebanjos, it will change the game for online TV viewing. My goal is to be the Tyler Perry of the UK!
It’s time to place quality independent British content firmly on the map of UK television. This revolution will be televised. Or at least, it will be at www.MeetTheAdebanjos.com
