Freehand is an Australian Television production and content creation company, founded in 2004 by John Gregory, Peter Abbott and Chris O’Mara.

Since its inception, Freehand has delivered to Australian audiences an enviable catalogue of high quality, high profile content, including light and factual entertainment, observational documentary, specials and children’s television.

Production credits include Planet Cake (Lifestyle Food), Matt Wright: Outback Wrangler (National Geographic Channel), Freshwater Blue (MTV), Top Gear Australia (moving from SBS to Nine Network in 2010), Dancing with the Stars (Seven Network), Bush Slam (ABC), Costa’s Garden Odyssey (SBS), Missing Persons Unit (Nine Network), An Audience with Michael Parkinson (UKTV) and One Small Step: The Australian Story (BBC Knowledge and BBC HD).

In 2008, Freehand joined forces with Blink Films to produce the exciting children’s program Escape from Scorpion Island (ABC) and together were successful in securing the inaugural commission for CBeebies Australia with the magical show for pre-schoolers, Penelope K, by the way

Penelope K, by the way

Penelope K, by the way is a British–Australian television program for pre-school children . The program is produced by Blink Films and Freehand for CBeebies, the BBC's children's television channel....

.

Keen to nurture emerging Australian filmmakers, in 2010 Freehand supported Darius Devas in the creation of the first exclusively ‘online’ documentary for SBS, Goa Hippy Tribe. This project set out to redefine program making by inviting an interested audience to participate in the ‘community’ of the idea, uploading their own writing, images and videos to Devas’ Facebook site.

As early as 2005, Freehand was delivering multi-platform content to 3 Mobile and Yahoo Australia & New Zealand for their show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (Network Ten) and in 2007 produced a digital version of their hit show Celebrity Dog School for the new channel Ten Digital. In 2009, Freehand published their first book, Bush Slam – Poems from the ABC TV Series.

BBC World Wide

In January 2007 it was announced that BBC Worldwide

BBC Worldwide

BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...

, the main commercial arm of the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

, agreed to take a 25% equity investment in the company. Under the terms of the deal, Freehand has a first view option on all BBC and independent formats to which BBC Worldwide has rights, to see them produced in Australia and New Zealand. Freehand will also have all its formats distributed through BBC Worldwide's vast global distribution network. When in 2008 Chris O’Mara left Freehand to pursue other opportunities, BBC Worldwide purchased his share of the business and now hold 37.5% equity.

Company Directors

John Gregory (Chief Executive Officer)

John worked in Europe as VP Business Affairs at Grundy Worldwide, General Manager of Beyond International Limited and CEO of Imagination Entertainment. At Grundy, John was a member of the senior management team that established the Grundy television business in Europe, South America and South East Asia and readied it for eventual acquisition by Pearson Television.

With Beyond, John worked across a broad range of projects in the factual and drama genres for broadcaster clients including Discovery, National Geographic and all Australian Free-to-air Networks.

Imagination was one of Australia’s first cross-platform media businesses and John developed a range of successful brands delivering content across both traditional and non-traditional media platforms

Peter Abbott (Director of Productions)

Peter has worked as an Executive Producer at Beyond, Southern Star and the Seven Network. He has developed a number of highly successful formats and had the hands on responsibility of delivering literally thousands of hours of programming across a range of genres.

Production credits

Some Say Love - Pilot (UKTV)

Planet Cake (Lifestyle Food)

Matt Wright: Outback Wrangler (National Geographic Channel)

Freshwater Blue (MTV)

Goa Hippy Tribe (SBS)

Penelope K, by the way (CBeebies)

Costa's Arnhem Land Odyssey (SBS)

Costa's Garden Odyssey Series 1 and 2 (SBS)

Bush Slam (ABC)

One Small Step (BBC Knowledge)

An Audience with Michael Parkinson (UKTV)

The Nest Series 1 and 2 (SBS).

Escape from Scorpion Island Series 2 - 5 (with RDF for ABC and BBC)

Top Gear Australia Series 1 and 2 (BBC Worldwide and SBS) Series 3 (BBC Worldwide and Nine Network)


Dancing with the Stars (Seven Network)

Missing Persons Unit Series 1 - 5 (Nine Network)

Great Australian Homes (How To Channel)

Owner Builder (How To Channel)

Outback Wildlife Rescue (Seven Network and BBC Worldwide)

The Great BBQ Challenge (XYZ Lifestyle Food)

The Nickelodeon 2005 and 2006 Kids’ Choice Awards

Honey We’re Killing The Kids (Ten Network and BBC Worldwide)

Skating On Thin Ice (Nine Network)

My Restaurant Rules (Seven Network)

Queer Eye for The Straight Guy (Ten Network)

Queer Eye exclusive mobile content (3)