Men & Motors re-launches as lifestyle format

Men & Motors, the UK TV channel brand previously operated by ITV and Sky between 1996 and 2010, is being re-launched to the international market as a lifestyle format.

One Media IP, a UK-based intellectual property company that acquired the Men & Motors assets from British broadcaster ITV in 2012, has transformed the brand into a new unscripted show aimed at millennials. It will be unveiled at MIPCOM next month.

The show is described as a cross between Top Gear, Robot Wars, The Gadget Show and Take Me Out.

Men & Motors will be hosted by Boyzone singer Shane Lynch and Torie Campbell.

Alice Dyson-Jones, commercial director at One Media IP, said the show would look at “anything with an engine” and would also feature games, gadgets and music.

It will also have an in-house physicist, a stunt driver and a house band, and will be shot on location “to capture a feeling of energy in line with other styled youth shows,” Dyson-Jones said.

The Men & Motors archive, which goes back to 1996, includes 1,500 hours of footage of former channel stars Richard Hammond, John Inverdale, Sacha Baron Cohen and Kelly Brook, will also be mined for content in the new format.

Men & Motors launched in 1996 as a men’s lifestyle channel, operated by Granada Sky Broadcasting, a joint venture between ITV affilate Granada TV and BSkyB (now Sky). It was later dropped to make room for ITV HD.

Since 2012, music publishing firm One Media IP has kept the brand alive via a YouTube channel, which currently has more than 80,000 subscribers.