Klik Studios has landed a licensing agreement with the BBC for worldwide rights to episodes of the talk show hosted by the late Michael Parkinson.
Klik Studios, formerly Night Train Digital, manages The Michael Parkinson Channel on YouTube. In 2024, it commissioned Virtually Parkinson, an award-winning AI podcast that was created with the support and involvement of the Parkinson family.
The new agreement covers Parkinson episodes that ran on BBC One from 1971 to 1982, as well as episodes from 1998, when the series returned for a second run on BBC One. Klik already holds the rights to Parkinson episodes that aired on ITV from 2004 to 2007. The extensive collection features interviews with Muhammad Ali, John Lennon, Lauren Bacall, Orson Welles, and Bing Crosby, among many others. Klik has also acquired the rights to Parkinson in Australia, which aired on ABC from 1979 to 1983.
Mike Parkinson, representing the Parkinson family, said: “We’ve worked closely with the Klik Studios team for some time now, and the trust we’ve built together made this the obvious next step. My father’s BBC years contain some of the most extraordinary interviews he ever had, and we’re delighted that they’ll now find a new generation of viewers through a partnership we genuinely believe in.”
Lara Sword, head of the factual network at Klik Studios, added, This is a truly historic moment for us. We’ve been proud custodians of the ITV archive and the YouTube channel for some time, but adding the early BBC years alongside that changes the scale of what we can do entirely. The Parkinson archive is one of the great documents of 20th century culture—and there is simply nothing else like it.”
Klik Studios is part of Seraverse, a Serafin company that houses Eccho Rights, BossaNova, and Curve Media.
