Together to sponsor second series of BAFTA winning TV programme hosted by Simon O’Brien

By Bridging Loan Directory 18th June 2021

Specialist lender Together has agreed a sponsorship deal for a second series of the BAFTA-winning national property renovation TV show, The Great House Giveaway.

Following the property finance company’s support for the hugely successful first series, it has agreed a £4.5m commercial facility for the producers, Welsh indie Chwarel, allowing contestants featuring in the new series to buy and renovate run-down houses across the UK.

Each episode of The Great House Giveaway sees teams of two who have never met or owned their own homes before. They are given a set budget and six months to refurbish a property before selling it. If they don’t sell, the house goes back to auction.

Chris Baguley, commercial managing director at Manchester-based Together, hailed the “phenomenal success” of the first series, which took the BAFTA UK award for Daytime, beating ITV’s The Chase, Jimmy McGovern’s Moving On for BBC 1 and Richard Osman’s House of Games for BBC 2.

He said: “We’re incredibly proud to be sponsoring The Great House Giveaway for a second series. The first was a huge hit with viewers who tuned in in their hundreds of thousands to watch the drama of property buying and refurbishment. It is testament to the show’s phenomenal success that it’s been re-commissioned by Channel 4 – with some of the episodes moved to prime time slots.”

He added: “As one of the leading players in the specialist finance market, The Great House Giveaway is the perfect fit for Together.

We’re delighted to once again be supporting this ground-breaking format and can’t wait to see how the contestants fare with their televised refurbishment projects.”

Chwarel have had previous success in producing Ty am Ddim, the Welsh language version of The Great House Giveaway, which was broadcast on S4C in 2019.

Sioned Wyn, Executive Producer at Chwarel said: “The Great House Giveaway has been a rollercoaster of a project to work on, in what has been extraordinary circumstances, both in the final post-production for the series and launching a new format in the middle of the year that we’ve all experienced.

However, we’ve really enjoyed working with all the contestants, Channel 4 and our sponsors Together to create this kind of aspirational, award-winning television.”