TV Kids June 2020 by World Screen

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TVKIDS

WWW.TVKIDS.WS

JUNE 2020

Kids’ Comedies / Panel: Distribution Strategies Serious Lunch’s Genevieve Dexter

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CONTENTS 8 SUCCESS STRATEGIES FOR DISTRIBUTORS Anna Carugati, World 8 Screen’s group editorial director, moderated a panel via video conference with CAKE’s Tom van Waveren, eOne’s Monica Candiani, Jetpack’s Dominic Gardiner and Toon2Tango’s Ulli Stoef focused on navigating the kids’ content distribution business in these “new normal” times.

10 LOOKING FOR LAUGHS Comedy remains in high demand, but as the distributors we surveyed indicate, it’s tough to get right.

24 IN-DEMAND: PRESCHOOL Our new series of genre reports includes a spotlight on shows in the preschool space.

28 SERIOUS LUNCH’S GENEVIEVE DEXTER The founder and CEO of Serious Lunch spoke to Kristin Brzoznowski, World Screen’s executive editor, via video conference about launching new IP and staying connected amid the current global lockdown.

GET DAILY NEWS ON KIDS’ PROGRAMMING

Publisher Ricardo Seguin Guise Group Editorial Director Anna Carugati Editor Mansha Daswani Executive Editor Kristin Brzoznowski Associate Editor Chelsea Regan Editor, Spanish-Language Publications Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari Contributing Editor Elizabeth Guider Production & Design Director David Diehl Online Director Simon Weaver Art Director Phyllis Q. Busell Senior Sales & Marketing Manager Dana Mattison Sales & Marketing Coordinator Genovick Acevedo Business Affairs Manager Andrea Moreno Contributing Writers Steve Clarke Andy Fry Joanna Stephens Jay Stuart David Wood

Ricardo Seguin Guise President Anna Carugati Executive VP Mansha Daswani Associate Publisher & VP of Strategic Development TV Kids ©2020 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 www.tvkids.ws

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WHERE H THE EN NTERT TA AINME ENT IS distribu ution@studio100media a.com I www.studio100gr 0group.com

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Success Strategies

for Kids’ Distributors

Anna Carugati, World Screen’s group editorial director, moderated a panel via video conference with CAKE’s Tom van Waveren, eOne’s Monica Candiani, Jetpack’s Dominic Gardiner and Toon2Tango’s Ulli Stoef focused on navigating the kids’ content distribution business in these “new normal” times. The panel, titled Success Strategies for Kids’ Distributors, featured Tom van Waveren, CEO and creative director of CAKE; Monica Candiani, executive VP of content sales for eOne Family & Brands; Dominic Gardiner, CEO of Jetpack Distribution; and Ulli Stoef, CEO of Toon2Tango. The panelists shared their knowledge and insights about buyers’ needs, the impact of COVID-19 on production capabilities, changing ﬁnancing models, providing optimum exposure for shows and opportunities for growth. 32 WORLD SCREEN 6/20

ntact:

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informatio For further

LUANA PERRERO for enquiries ROW luana.perrero@mondotvgroup.com www.mondotvgroup.com

ULLI STOEF for enquiries GAS, Scandic, BeNeLux and English speaking info@toon2tango.com www.toon2tango.com

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Mediatoonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bobby and Bill. 34 WORLD SCREEN 6/20

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Looking for Laughs Character-driven comedy elevates kids’ content across all genres for all markets and all ages. By Chelsea Regan

elevision titles aimed at kids—whether they are about superheroes or heroes from the pages of history—need comedy. And kids’ comedy— whether it be slapstick or situational, if it wants to travel across continents or your living room—needs character at its heart to drive it home. Comedy is not only the best-selling and best-performing genre in the kids’ content arena, according to leading industry execs, it’s also the key ingredient across all other genres of programming aimed at kids, peppering everything from action and adventure series to the programs that seek to educate its young audience. The universality of wanting to be entertained and wanting to laugh is as true—if not more true—for kids as it is for 6/20 WORLD SCREEN 35

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their elders. Comedy’s ability to engage and connect is all the more ampliﬁed by carefully constructed characters to support it. “Comedy is the essential component for most genres,” says Dominic Gardiner, CEO of Jetpack Distribution. “Even if a series isn’t supposed to be funny, it’s good to have comedy in it. Preschool, education, adventure, everything has Jetpack Distribution’s slate of comedies comedy in it. If you’re trying to get includes Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty. kids to pay attention, then comedy is the best way to hold their eyes. Comedy is like the currency of kids; the way kids behave with each other. They’re always laughing, they’re always making jokes or doing silly things, so that’s what the content needs to do in order to engage with kids.” Vince Commisso, president and CEO of 9 Story Media Group, concurs with Gardiner that comedy is essential. “I don’t think you can make any kind of kids’ content these days without there being a comedic element to it,” he says. “Kids always want to be entertained with a smile, with a giggle. You can engage them through some other ethos—creativity, friendship, family, empathy—but if there’s not a comedic element to it, you won’t succeed.” As a frequent supplier and partner of PBS Kids, 9 Story has ample experience infusing comedy into content that aims to have kids learn while they’re laughing. Those shows “always have an educational component, but they [also] always have entertainment at the forefront,” says Commisso. “I think you have to actually lead with the entertainment and with the 36 WORLD SCREEN 6/20

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Half Heroes is a new comedy being developed at Cyber Group Studios.

comedy and then deliver the education in that construct because that’s what sticks.” At Guru Studio, “we’re always focused on character-driven stories,” says Jonathan Abraham, VP of sales and business development. “Comedy has to come from characters being put in situations where their personalities can come through.” Tom van Waveren, CEO and creative director at CAKE—which recently secured a global deal for a series based on the Lucas the Spider YouTube shorts—also sees characters and the comedy that spools out and around them as the true pulse of shows that want to help kids learn. “You put the characters at the center of the storytelling and wrap the educational around it, rather than making a show about the education and trying to wrap a character story around it,” he advises. It’s a given that comedy can be a portal to learning, providing kids an education on all matter of topics and subjects without them feeling like they’re back in the classroom. Curriculumbased comedy, so to speak, is part of a larger pattern in demand that sees broadcasters and SVODs being more interested in 38 WORLD SCREEN 6/20

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genre shows with comedy than shows with comedy as the sum total of their parts. “It has moved to action-comedy, adventure-comedy, while before it was just pure comedy; it’s segmenting into genres,” says Guru Studio makes a number of character-driven comedies, Pierre Sissmann, chairincluding the preschool series Pikwik Pack. man and CEO of Cyber Group Studios, who believes that comedy can help kids absorb more important topics, including family values and dynamics. Finding the right sort of comedy to inject into a series, however, can be difficult. According to those making and distributing these series, creating quality comedy comes with unique challenges that many companies struggle to meet—a reason for the ongoing demand for such shows. “There’s always a lack of comedy because it’s hard to make good comedy,” as van Waveren succinctly puts it. “It’s a hard genre to get right. There’s not a diminished appetite for it; I think it’s as good a time as ever to do a good comedy.” Josh Selig, CEO of Little Airplane Productions, which is developing the new comedy Doctor Space with Studio 100 Media and Fantawild Animation, was similarly blunt. “There’s always a big demand for good comedies for one simple reason: the supply is always so limited,” he says. “Good comedy is very hard to make, especially in animation.” Having a funny showrunner on board overseeing every step of the process is Selig’s advice to beat the 40 WORLD SCREEN 6/20

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Doctor Space is a new comedy series from Little Airplane, Studio 100 Media and Fantawild.

odds of a comedy bust. But otherwise? “Companies should stay away from comedies unless they are great at making comedies.” Slapstick has been around since the silent era. And modern non-dialogue programs aimed at preschoolers continue that tradition. The appeal of creative but ultimately innocuous injury endures. Though depending on who you ask, slapstick’s ability to resonate is up for debate and contingent on all kinds of factors— from age to country to the vehicle of that comedy. Mr. Bean, for instance, referenced by two execs surveyed for this feature, resonates because of the titular character. “Mr. Bean is a great example of how physical humor can work really well,” says CAKE’s van Waveren. “Because ultimately it informs the character.” Cyber Group’s Sissmann has observed a rise in slapstick’s popularity in recent years, a trend that has beneﬁted the company’s hit show Taffy. In the vein of Tom and Jerry, the series centers on a raccoon who invades a dog’s rich domestic life by disguising itself as a cat. “Slapstick humor has always worked,” says Sissmann. “There have been ups and downs, but I think that 42 WORLD SCREEN 6/20

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Mediatoon’s Garfield Originals features the beloved cat in a series of shorts.

today it works much better than it did ten to 15 years ago. Maybe because times are more serious and there are more issues around the world and people need to laugh more.” Of course, in order to achieve good slapstick, there’s that pesky need for a character worth investing in to support it, to make people care. “You can’t just have an anvil fall from the sky; you have to have it set up by character,” says Commisso of 9 Story. The characters become even more vital to the success of a series and its comedy beats when the target audience is older. The comedy then “comes from interactions between the characters,” says Commisso, and the characters “do things that are unexpected or say things that are unexpected.” When the audience gets a little bit older still, “the comedy gets to be kind of wise-cracky.” When you’re looking at comedy that can do as well in Asia as in Europe as in North America and so on, slapstick would seem to have fewer barriers to entry. And it can and does travel well. “The pie in the face, regardless of what part of the planet you’re from, 44 WORLD SCREEN 6/20

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that’s a funny gag,” says Jetpack’s Gardiner. “You don’t need to explain that or translate that.” Guru’s Abraham echoes the point. “Slapstick comedy is obviously going to travel internationally the easiest,” he says. “The biggest challenge when it comes to comedy traveling around the world is having to dub the show into local languages. Sometimes the context of the jokes is lost, or the way the words are positioned will directly impact the delivery and the comedy is entirely missed.” While Jérôme Alby, managing director at Mediatoon Distribution, joins the consensus in pointing to slapstick’s ease of entry to markets the world over, he also finds that programs can travel on the coattails of known characters— like Garfield, for instance. “Garfield is a global character; for people in America, it’s American, for the Chinese, it’s almost Chinese,” he says. “Typically, the best shows are the ones that have global reach, and that people in every country think that it’s local, that it’s theirs.” Odd couple comedy duos also have broad appeal, according to Alby. “It’s a global and universal thing. You can be somewhere in a small tribe of Amazonia as well as a village in Germany and everyone laughs at it.” CAKE secured the distribution rights to Lucas the Spider. 46 WORLD SCREEN 6/20

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In-Demand: Preschool As part of our efforts to help buyers find the best content to fill their slates, TV Kids has launched a series of genre reports, spotlighting new shows in a variety of areas. In our debut edition, we’re highlighted hot properties in preschool: Guru Studio’s True and the Rainbow Kingdom, ZDF Enterprises’ Ziggy and the Zootram, Acamar Films’ Bing and the Australian Children’s Television Foundation’s Little J & Big Cuz. Watch clips for these shows and more here.

Ziggy and the Zootram Commissioned By: VRT/Ketnet, ZDF, ZDF Enterprises and coproduced with WunderWerk Produced By: Grid Animation, Fabrique

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(S1)

Telegael (S2) Rights Available: ZDF Enterprises is representing all rights worldwide outside of co-production territories. Description: A 3D animated series about a group of animals who live in a small zoo and who have a very special secret: they go home at night! Aimed at upper preschool (3-6), the series consists of 52x11-minute episodes. Pitch Perfect: “Ziggy and the Zootram is such a sweet series!” says Katharina Pietzsch, director of ZDFE.junior at ZDF Enterprises. “We are convinced that the fun adventures of Ziggy and his animal friends will entertain audiences all over the world—both children as well as their families, and will brighten up their days.” Sales Contacts: Katharina Pietzsch, Marei Bruckmann, Jan-Frederik Maul. 48 WORLD SCREEN 6/20

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True and the Rainbow Kingdom Commissioned By: Netflix Produced By: Guru Studio Rights Available: First-run linear rights and L&M opportunities in all major territories. Description: Geared to the 3 to 6 set. Compassionate superhero True and her hilarious best friend Bartleby the cat come to the rescue of Rainbow Kingdom’s whimsical citizens. All four seasons available for license, including: 30x22-minute episodes, 5x22minute seasonal specials, a 1x44-minute holiday special in 19 languages and bonus short-form content for social and digital platforms. Pitch Perfect: “True is everything you’d want in a hero: she doesn’t wield a sword or wave a wand, but her kindness and compassion make her an aspirational role model for both girls and boys,” says Jonathan Abraham, VP of sales and business development at Guru Studio. “The show’s timely and important message empowers children to be mindful, courageous and respectful of all living things.” Slot Winner: With strong international broadcast partners including Tiny Pop (U.K.), Discovery Kids (U.S.), Gloob (Brazil), Frisbee (Italy), Canal Panda (Spain & Portugal), RTS (Switzerland), Hop! (Israel), DR (Denmark), CBC Kids (Canada) and Radio-Canada (French-Canada), True and the Rainbow Kingdom continues to be a highly in-demand and top-rated show around the world. The series has received multiple award nominations, including the Daytime Emmy Awards, Banff Rockie Awards, Kidscreen Awards and Canadian Screen Awards. A full line of consumer products that includes books, plush, costumes and toys has launched in North America and is poised to launch internationally later this year. Sales Contact: Jonathan Abraham, VP of Sales & Business Development. 6/20 WORLD SCREEN 49

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Bing Produced By: Acamar Films & Brown Bag Films Rights Available: All rights available from Acamar Films. Description: Adapted specially for television from the original books by Ted Dewan, Bing authentically mirrors a young child’s experience and celebrates the noisy, joyful, messy reality of preschool life. Bing values emotional development and soft learning, and has a team of educational consultants informing the content. Episodes available: S1: 26x7 minutes, S2: 26x7 minutes, S3: 26x7 minutes, S4: 26x7 minutes. Pitch Perfect: Bing has seen extraordinary success since it launched in the U.K. in 2014, winning an International Emmy for best preschool program, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for best writing in a children’s program and a BAFTA nomination for best children’s program. Bing has been licensed to 130 territories worldwide and continues to “move and delight” Bingsters and their grown-ups through an increasing range of award-winning films, books, magazines, apps, consumer products, digital, live shows and cinema experiences. Slot Winner: Number one most requested preschool show in the U.K. on BBC iPlayer with over 423 million requests since launch. Number one on the RaiPlay Yoyo app and in the top 20 for kids on RaiPlay (Italy). Named Property of the Year at the Bologna Licensing Awards for 2019 activity in Italy. Nominations include 2020 Rockie Award in the Children & Youth: Preschool category and Best Animated Entertainment/Character Brand for Licensing International Excellence Awards 2020. Bing consistently outperforms all competitors on Facebook in terms of growth. Bing awareness, affinity and purchase intention has increased year-on-year. Sales Contacts: Eroulla Constantine, Director of Sales & Distribution; Ben Taylor, Sales Executive. 50 WORLD SCREEN 6/20

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Little J & Big Cuz Commissioned By: NITV Producers: Ned Lander, CoProducers: Alicia Rackett & Colin South Rights Available: Australian Children’s Television Foundation is offering all international rights to the title. Description: Tells the story of 5-year-old Little J and his 9-year-old cousin Big Cuz. They’re a couple of Indigenous Australian kids living with their Nanna and Old Dog, exploring their world, whether that’s in the playground, the classroom, the backyard... or beyond. There’s always something surprising going on, and with the help of Nanna and their school teacher Ms Chen, Little J and Big Cuz are finding out all about culture, community and country. S2: 13x12 minutes, S1: 13x12 minutes. Pitch Perfect: In series two we see Little J and Big Cuz exploring more of their world and having lots of fun along the way. With episode titles such as “Road Trip,” “School Sleepover,” “Bush Medicine,” “Desert Camp” and “Finding Home,” it’s clear that Little J and Big Cuz are learning more about life around them and where and how they fit in. Sales Contacts: Roberta Di Vito, International Sales Manager; Tim Hegarty, International Sales Manager.

In-Demand

Virtually Pitch Your New Kids’ Shows This June

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By Kristin Brzoznowski

Genevieve Dexter

Serious Lunch

he educational live-action series Operation Ouch! has been going strong on CBBC for eight seasons, with season nine in production and a slew of global sales to boot. When one of the twin doctors fronting the show contracted a mild case of the coronavirus, the team sprang into action to use the series as a teaching tool for young ones about health and hygiene related to COVID-19. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s this type of informative, and yet oh-so-entertaining, kidsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; content that broadcasters are looking for these

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days, according to Genevieve Dexter, the founder and CEO of Serious Lunch. She also points to fantasy as an indemand genre among children’s programming buyers at present. With its highly curated catalog, Serious Lunch is ready to deliver. Dexter spoke to Kristin Brzoznowski, World Screen’s executive editor, via video conference about launching new IP, such as The World According to Willow Wong, and staying connected amid the current global lockdown. Also the founder and CEO of the animation studio Eye Present, Dexter is able to speak from both a distribution and production

Watch a clip of The New Legends of Monkey on WorldScreenings.com.

perspective on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. With a spirit of optimism, she believes there will be “an outpouring of beautifully developed properties” to come from the additional time and attention for projects that are in the development phase, once production is back to firing on all cylinders. 6/20 WORLD SCREEN 53

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