A. SMITH & CO. PRODUCTIONS
A. Smith & Co. Productions generates some of the most innovative, highly-rated and high quality programming for the domestic and international television marketplace. Since its launch in 2000 by founders Arthur Smith and Kent Weed, the company has created over 700 hours of programming and developed and produced the #1 show in America an astonishing twelve times and a Top 5 show over fifty times. The company’s Emmy® nominated hit show Hell’s Kitchen completed its 5th season in the spring of 2009 and will premiere the 6th season on FOX July 21, 2009. A. Smith & Co.’s highly rated programming and executive team have been nominated for several awards including a DGA Award and an NAACP Image Award. In May of 2009, the company’s I Survived a Japanese Game Show was honored with the prestigious Best of 2009 Award and the Golden Rose in the category of Reality Programming during the final evening of the 49th annual Rose d’Or Festival.
In its short history, A. Smith has produced properties whose budgets total nearly half a billion dollars, maintaining strategic distribution partnerships with over 25 networks including FOX, to which A. Smith is the network’s largest supplier of unscripted television. A. Smith & Co. recently expanded its business by forming A. Smith & Co. Properties, a division geared to the rapidly expanding cable market with series commitments from TLC, The Discovery Channel, truTV, BET, VERSUS, Oxygen and Travel Channel.
A. Smith & Co.’s current lineup of programming appears across numerous networks and has provided their partners with viable content that draws and retains viewers. These programs include Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares with Chef Gordon Ramsay for FOX, ABC’s newest reality hit I Survived a Japanese Game Show, and Crash Course. Additionally A. Smith & Co. produced Trading Spaces which brought back Paige Davis as the show’s host for TLC, BET’s critically acclaimed documentary series American Gangster and Pros vs. Joes 4: ALL-STARS & UFC Countdown for Spike. The company’s library of product also includes popular programming such as The Swan, Skating With Celebrities, Paradise Hotel, Celebrity Duets, A Hero's Welcome, Come Home Alive, You Gotta See This, I'm Still Alive and Mad Mad House.
Already an established production power-house in the states, the company is expanding its footprint in the international television arena via strategic relationships with some of industry’s biggest players. The company maintains working relationships with ITV Studios, RDF, Mentorn, and Fremantle among others. A. Smith & Co. has also been very successful in exporting its programming abroad having sold shows like Hell’s Kitchen in over 100 territories and successfully completing format sales of its Skating with Celebrities in a majority of the world. A. Smith & Co.’s principals bring decades of experience in the conception and execution of some of the most notable shows in the business of television.
A. Smith & Co. is currently in production on three original formats including Crash Course for ABC, I Married a Stranger for FOX, and Full Throttle for truTV. Crash Course features five couples undertaking four extreme driving challenges. In the first three rounds, contestants perform such obstacles as driving on two wheels or navigating intense weather conditions. Contestants have to work together to survive each eliminating round and win in the final obstacle track challenge. In I Married a Stranger, friends and family of an eligible woman in her 30s are presented with five eligible men from whom they choose the ultimate spouse. Full Throttle is a four-part series which provides a first-ever look into Mike Ballard’s Full Throttle Saloon in Sturgis, S.D. during the town’s famed motorcycle rally. More than 300,000 people visit the Full Throttle Saloon during the annual event where Ballard and his team feel the pressure to make a year’s salary in just nine days while providing all patrons an experience they will not forget.
