BossaNova Media has confirmed pre-sales to three major international broadcasters—SBS Australia, Channel 4 in the UK, and TV 2 Denmark—for “Days That Shocked the World,” a new premium factual series produced by BriteSpark Films, part of the Argonon Group.
The series was developed through BossaNova’s Development Day pitching program, an initiative designed to accelerate the commissioning and financing of factual projects with global appeal. The 2024 edition of the event, held ahead of MIPCOM in Cannes, brought together top international buyers and led to the greenlight for the series, which revisits the defining disasters of the past four decades through first-hand accounts and powerful archival material.
“Days That Shocked the World” features a lineup of one- and two-part episodes focused on major historical catastrophes, including the 1986 Challenger Space Shuttle explosion, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the 2000 Concorde crash, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami. Each episode marks the anniversary of these events, combining survivor testimony and exclusive access to historical footage to reconstruct the moments that changed global history.
The series follows in the footsteps of several successful titles to emerge from the Development Day platform, including “The Killer Clown: Murder on the Doorstep,” “Con Girl,” “The Flight Attendant Murders,” “The Infinite Deep: Stories of Lost Submarines,” “The Chameleon: The Killing of Ronald Platt,” “Searching for Michael Jackson’s Zoo,” and the “By Train” series. Since its inception in 2015 under BossaNova CEO Paul Heaney—originally as part of his previous company, TCB Media Rights—the Development Day format has become a reliable incubator for high-quality factual content with international reach.
Paul Heaney said, “Illustrating how effective our Development Day has become, this show was a 2024 pitch that some of the coalition of the willing came together on. We expect high quality and amazing access from BriteSpark as ever and they’re delivering as they did with ‘Tsunami: The Day the Wave Hit,’ which has worked beautifully for us and audiences worldwide.”
The new series underscores BossaNova’s growing influence in the global factual market, combining commercial strategy with strong editorial partnerships to deliver premium content to broadcasters worldwide.