G100 UK: Darlow Smithson Productions

Darlow Smithson Productions
(an IMG Media company, London)

Granted, the company - now a newly minted arm of IMG Media - continues to produce global hits (this year, broadcasters' picks include Day of the Kamikaze and Falling Man), maintaining the same successful thread found in Deep Water and I Shouldn't Be Alive, recent moves hint at bigger things to come.

Last August, Darlow Smithson added 16-year A&E vet Didi O'Hearn as vice president of US productions. Based in New York, O'Hearn will oversee an expansion of US commissions. Also not to be ignored are recent moves at IMG that may affect the prodco. In February, ex-HBO head and now IMG Global Media president Chris Albrecht brought on Rob Lee to head up programming, and work at the pointy end of IMG's factual production affiliates, Darlow Smithson and fellow G100 nominee Tiger Aspect Productions. Lee recently headed his own Bayonne Entertainment, but has previous experience at the TV and packaging divisions of Triad Artists and the William Morris Agency.

In the meantime, it's back to the businesses at hand, notes co-founder John Smithson, and that means maintaining "our ability to deliver high-end, international coproductions in volume and in quality."

Employees: 160
Hours this year: 71
Recent titles: Day of the Kamikaze, Falling Man, We Built this City
Current/upcoming titles: Thriller in Manila (Channel 4), Manmade Marvels (Discovery Asia), Ecopolis (Discovery US), Rutka's Diary (BBC 1)
www.darlowsmithson.com