Half Yard Productions was an award-winning Maryland-based American reality television production company owned by The North Road Company that specialized in unscripted, character-driven reality series, documentaries, and specials. Founded in May 2006 by Abby Greensfelder and Sean Gallagher, and formerly part of German entertainment company Red Arrow Studios until 2022 when it was sold to Peter Chernin's The North Road Company, the company was located in Bethesda, Maryland and had an office in New York City, it was best known for producing TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress and I Just Killed My Dad for Netflix.
Half Yard Productions was established in May 2006 when former Discovery Channel head of programming and development Abby Greensfelder and TLC production/development chief Sean Gallagher had departed Discovery Networks to form a new unscripted independent production company entitled Half Yard Productions. Abby Greensfelder and Sean Gallagher became co-presidents of the new studio. During that time of its founding, Half Yard Productions signed a deal an overall production pact with Discovery Networks to produce unscripted programming.[1]
In February 2014, Munich-based German entertainment and production distribution studio Red Arrow Entertainment Group (now Seven.One Studios), part of German broadcasting company ProSiebenSat.1 Media, acquired a majority stake in Half Yard Productions to breach its American unscripted production portfolio. Half Yard Productions became part of Red Arrow Entertainment Group, with co-founders Abby Greensfelder and Sean Gallagher continuing to lead Half Yard Productions under Red Arrow.[2][3]
At the start of May 2018, Half Yard Productions had formed a new crime and investigation unit dedicated to producing crime and investigation programming with Half Yard hiring Sirens Media executive and crime producer Anne Rothwell to handle handle Half Yard's new crime & investiagtion unit.[4]
In July 2021, Half Yard Productions signed a pact with Washington-based production outfit Public School Productions, founded by former Discovery Channel VP of production and development and award-winning producer Christo Doyle, to co-produce and co-develop programming dedicated to authentic, first-in-its-space content with rich and dynamic characters. Half Yard Productions' CEO Dirk Hoogstra would serve as executive producer of programs co-produced with Public School Productions.[5]
In July 2022 when Peter Chernin, founder of Chernin Entertainment and The Chernin Group, announced that he established a global independent and production content studio that would bring his film & television production company Chernin Entertainment (which was brought over from The Chernin Group) and its unscripted production studio Words + Pictures entitled The North Road Company and the two subsidiaries became part of his new company as labels, Half Yard Productions' German entertainment & international distribution parent company Red Arrow Studios exited the American television production industry had sold its American entertainment production operations including Half Yard to Peter Chernin's new global studio The North Road Company, when they had brought the US assets of German entertainment & international distribution company Red Arrow Studios from ProSiebenSat.1 Media including Half Yard as it became a subsidiary of Chernin's new global content company The North Road Company while Half Yard's co-founders Abby Greensfelder and Sean Gallagher continued to operate Half Yard under North Road. During that time, its newly established international division North Road Intetnational (which is based in London, England) had assumed Half Yard Productions's programming catalogue and would distribute the latter's future productions.[6][7][8][9]
One year later in December 2023, following North Road's founding and the acquisition of the American production subsidiaries from Munich-based German entertainment and production company Red Arrow Studios back in 2022, Half Yard Productions announced that its CCO Nicole Sorrenti, whom had joined Half Yard Productions back in 2007, and its CEO Dirk Hoogstra had depatured the Maryland-based production studio.[10]
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