Answering to the rise of digital channels and niche cable offerings, FremantleMedia Australia, one of the country’s largest producers of entertainment programs announced the launch of Spring last Thursday.

A new content creation division, Spring, has been developed to produce content that bears the “high quality trademark of FremantleMedia, but catering specifically to smaller, new channels,” according to Ian Hogg, FremantleMedia’s Asia Pacific CEO.

Speaking at the launch of Spring, Hogg made the analogy of Spring being akin to “what Jetstar is to Qantas, where a new company will open up new opportunities for stakeholders who couldn’t afford the main product offering initially”. Spring will be producing content for off-peak free to air networks, digital and subscription channels. Spring will also be reaching out to communities and brands to present opportunities on how smaller businesses can get involved with content and branding of new TV programs.

“There’s a huge potential for Spring to capitalise on the appetite among brands to develop funded content in non-traditional ways, and the growing demand among broadcasters for new forms of local content,” said Hogg.

“FremantleMedia will always be our premium product for high value, tent pole programming, whereas Spring will cater to the other end of the market which is not currently being serviced properly.”

The company already has several new projects in the pipeline, and will be announced in the coming weeks.