Thriller Series THE LISTENERS to Premiere on STARZ in the U.S.

STARZ has acquired the exclusive U.S. rights to the five-part thriller The Listeners, starring Golden Globe and BAFTA nominee Rebecca Hall and directed by Janicza Bravo from Fremantle. 

Based on the novel by Jordan Tannahill, who also wrote the adaptation, the drama series premiered on BBC One in the U.K. to broad critical acclaim and will premiere in the U.S. exclusively on STARZ in 2026.

 The Listeners is a thriller centered around Claire (Hall), a popular English teacher, who begins to hear a low humming sound that no one else around her can hear. This seemingly innocuous noise gradually upsets the balance of her life, increasing tension between herself and her husband, Paul (Prasanna Puwanarajah), and daughter, Ashley (Mia Tharia). But despite multiple doctors, no obvious source or medical cause can be found.

When she discovers that a student of hers, Kyle (Ollie West), can also hear the sound, the two strike up an unlikely and intimate friendship. Finding themselves increasingly isolated from their families, friends and colleagues, they fall in with a disparate group of neighbors, led by a charismatic couple, Jo (Gayle Rankin) and Omar (Amr Waked), who also claim they can hear what they call “The Hum” – but rather than track down the source to stop it, believe it is a gift, heard only by a “chosen few.”

The Listeners is an Element Pictures, a Fremantle company, production for the BBC. The series is written by Jordan Tannahill and directed by Janicza Bravo. Both also serve as executive producers, alongside Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Chelsea Morgan Hoffmann and Rachel Dargavel for Element Pictures, Rebecca Ferguson for the BBC, and Alice Birch.

The series is produced by Ed KING (His House, Suspect, Howl). Fremantle is handling global sales. The deal with STARZ was brokered by Fremantle’s EVP of Distribution, North America, Lisa Honig, and Lorenzo De Maio of De Maio Entertainment.

Photo Credit: STARZ