Two Australian production companies plan to launch an online sex advice channel, distributed via Google TV, Apple TV and Roku TV.
To fund the venture they aim to raise $1 million via a crowd-funding site. Entitled Intelligent Sex, the channel’s first two shows will be Hook Line and Sink Her, a 13-part drama based on Carla Bonner’s 2012 self-published e-book of that name; and Relate Your Way, a weekly open forum hosted by relationships expert Rachel Wilson.
The forums will be "uncensored, unrestricted, open-minded and non-judgmental discussions and entertainment about all things sex, sexuality and relationships of ALL kinds," says Wilson.
The channel is the brainchild of Web Video Solutions’ Eddie Postma, who is partnering with Horizon Films, the production company headed by David Pulbrook and Paul Green, whose credits include The Cup, Pulbrook’s Last Dance, Brilliant Lies and Hotel Sorrento.
Postma tells IF he is deciding which crowd-funding site to use and he intends to launch the campaign in March. He says those three platforms have a potential reach of 35 million homes worldwide. Subscribers would be charged a monthly fee of $7–$9. He figures that if just 1% of those homes sign up for the channel it will be a viable business.
Crowd-funding supporters who pledge $50 will get a one-year subscription to the channel valued at about $100.
He got in touch with Bonner via Linked-in and saw her online show as a perfect fit for the channel. A former Neighbours star, Bonner wrote the book to help men understand women and how to “reignite the passion” of relationships, drawing on her own experiences.
The actress played Stephanie Scully in Neighbours for 11 years, departing in November 2010 after her character was sent to jail for culpable driving.
Gary O’Toole is writing the scripts for the first two series. Bonner intends to play the protagonist, a sexual relationships therapist.
O’Toole says he plans to shoot the episodes over eight weeks in April/May. Postma says the two shows will cross-promote each other as the forum will deal with issues raised in Bonner’s series. Both will be produced at Horizon’s Melbourne’s studios using its production facilities.
The aim is to launch the channel in July. Postma has spent the last few years producing series for Chinese TV, including one on Chinese who live in Australia, and involved in webcasting and on-demand streaming.
If Bonner's show succeeds, O'Toole says he will likely retain the role of head writer and run the writers' room, which will free him up to continue to develop other TV shows and feature films under his banner Red Rock Pictures, including Nulla, a supernatural thriller about an Australian soldier who sets out to drive from Melbourne to Perth with a buddy, a US soldier, where nasty things happen.