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NATPE & INTERNATIONAL EMMY KIDS AWARDS EDITION Top Programmers Reveal Their Strategies for 2013 THE MAGAZINE OF CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 www.tvkids.ws

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NATPE & INTERNATIONAL EMMY

KIDS AWARDSEDITION

Top ProgrammersReveal TheirStrategies for 2013

THE MAGAZINE OF CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013www.tvkids.ws

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News from the kids’ business, in your inbox every day

An online destination for children’s entertainment, ToonGoggles launched its subscriber-based service early lastSeptember. It continues, however, to provide an option toview up to three episodes from the platform’s library ofdiverse content for free along with providing access toall educational programming at no cost. Last year, the com-pany expanded the availability of its unique children’s enter-tainment platform by signing with blue-chip partners thatincluded Sony, through which it launched a new exclu-sive app for all of Sony’s Xperia smartphones. This isthe second time that Toon Goggles has partneredwith Sony. Earlier in the year, the two compa-nies had launched a new exclusive app for Sony Xperia Sand Sony Tablet P.

The Toon Goggles iOS app is available for download inthe iTunes App Store and for Android in the Google PlayStore. And, Toon Goggles became available to download forfree in the KIDO’Z App Store. The app includes hundreds ofvideos that have been divided into six categories: girl, boy,comedy, action, preschool and educational.

Toon Goggleswww.toongoggles.com

While the 26x30-minute preschool series Doki is brand-newto the market, its central character has been around for sometime. Doki was first introduced to Latin American audiencesas the official animated host of Discovery Kids and has devel-oped a devoted following from appearing in interstitials onthe preschool channel. Doki already has an extensive licens-ing program built around him, including categories such astoys, games, apparel, publishing and stationery. PortfolioEntertainment is now ready to launch the series to theglobal marketplace.

Portfolio is also keen to showcase The Cat in the Hat Knowsa Lot About That! and The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot AboutChristmas! “The Cat in the Hat is a classic property and ournew seasonal special rated fantastically well over the 2012 hol-iday period in North America, which will add to itsenduring appeal,” says Joy Rosen, Portfolio’s co-founder andpresident. “Each of these properties has been produced in-house and are projects that we have developed and nurturedthrough the development and production process.”

• Doki• The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!• The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About Christmas!

Portfolio Entertainment

“Already a popularmascot in Latin America, webelieve Doki ’s fresh stylewill make it a global hit.”

—Joy Rosen

www.portfolioentertainment.com

Ricardo Seguin GuisePublisher

Anna CarugatiEditor

Mansha DaswaniExecutive Editor

Kristin BrzoznowskiManaging EditorJoanna PadovanoAssociate Editor

Simon WeaverOnline DirectorPhyllis Q. Busell

Art DirectorCesar Suero

Sales & MarketingDirector

Vanessa BrandSales & Marketing

ManagerTerry Acunzo

Business Affairs Manager

Ricardo Seguin GuisePresident

Anna CarugatiExecutive VP &

Group Editorial DirectorMansha Daswani

Associate Publisher & VP of StrategicDevelopment

TV Kids© 2013 WSN INC.

1123 Broadway, #1207New York, NY 10010

Phone: (212) 924-7620

Fax: (212) 924-6940

Website: www.tvkids.ws

IN THIS ISSUERace to the TopExecutives from Disney,Nickelodeon, CartoonNetwork, CBeebiesand KidsCo discusstheir strategies forsuccess 8

InterviewCyber Group’sPierre Sissmann 18

Doki

6 TV KIDS

For a free subscription, visit tvkids.ws/pages/newsletter

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to theThe battle for the hearts and minds of kids in the U.S. and

around the world has been dominated for years by threemajor players (no spoiler alert needed): Cartoon Network, DisneyChannel and Nickelodeon. All three can claim to be numberone in one way or another, but in the last year the race for a(probably unattainable) absolute number one is closer than ever.

In the U.S., Nickelodeon lost its longtime ratings lead intotal day viewers 2 and older in the fourth quarter of 2011,and that slippage was a factor in lower revenues last year for itsparent company, Viacom. Nick’s slide has been, primarily, Dis-ney’s gain. “We’ve had an unbelievable year on Disney Chan-nel,” says Paul DeBenedittis, the senior VP of programmingstrategy at Disney Channels Worldwide. “Early on [in 2011]we started to catch up with and beat Nickelodeon, whichwe have continued to do throughout the year. Now we’vebecome number one in the marketplace.”

Cartoon Network claimed a ratings lead in a number ofboys’ demographics in the third quarter last year and said thequarter was the best in six years for total day viewing in keykids’ and boys’ demos.

But Nick isn’t standing pat. Viacom’s president and CEO,Philippe Dauman, told the 21st Annual Goldman Sachs

Communacopia Conference in September that an increase inprogram development and production was part of the com-pany’s effort to get the kids’ channel back on track and turndomestic ad-sales growth positive.

And Jules Borkent, the senior VP of global acquisitions andinternational programming for Nickelodeon, says it’s impor-tant to differentiate between Nick’s U.S. and internationalperformance. “Nick’s ratings in the U.S. are improving, withsome strong numbers to date,” he says. “Outside the U.S.,ratings across the international portfolio are currently up5 percent, year to year.”

Whichever network emerges with bragging rights to theposition of U.S. or world number one, the big three clearlydominate the children’s television business with programmingstrategies that are more similar than different. They operate mul-tiple channels for different segments of the audience, rely heavilyon original programming from their home offices and interna-tional channels, mix animation and live action, acquire and co-produce shows to fill out their schedules and use digital platformsto reach kids wherever they may be.

As the name suggests, Cartoon Network was built on ani-mation, and at age 20 it continues to rely heavily on cartoons,

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DreamWorks Classics’ Dragons: Riders of Berk

on Cartoon Network.

8 TV KIDS

TopBy Bill Dunlap

Race The leading children’s channels are using a mix of originals andacquisitions in the fierce battle to be number one among kids.

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with more animation and more characters—it says 2,000-plus—than anyone else, a cartoon library of more than 14,000Warner Bros., MGM, Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Networkoriginal series and shorts.

IRREVERENT FUN“It all starts with our brand vision and content strategy,” saysStuart Snyder, the president and COO of Turner Broadcast-ing’s animation, young adults’ and kids’ media division. “Wewant to entertain our audience with funny and unique con-tent that can only be seen on our network. We lead with greatanimation, but we also provide a complete platform in termsof a broad content slate that includes live action and specialevents. Animation or live action, our audience target is boys,but we do it in a way that also invites girls in.”Two recent live-action series are Level Up, an ensemble com-

edy that mixes high schoolers and video-game characters, andthe sketch comedy Incredible Crew, created by Nick Cannon.“Those series build on the live-action successes we’ve

already had with Destroy Build Destroy; Dude, What Would Hap-

pen; and Hole in the Wall,” Snyder says. “The foundation iscomedy for today’s generation of kids.“Animation has always been our core strength. Now, we’ve

found the new creative talent for this generation. They’re cre-ating new, funny animation in shows like Adventure Time, fromPen Ward, [and] Regular Show, from J. G. Quintel, that justbuild on the foundation of what we’ve done in the past.” Coming up in February is the network’s third annual Hall

of Game Awards, a sports awards show done from a kids’ per-spective, hosted by Shaquille O’Neal and Nick Cannon.“We’re all about finding that next generation of great creative

talent, giving them the environment to do their best, and thenusing the Cartoon Network platform to make hits,” Snyder says.“This is a common thread around the world. Adventure Time

and Regular Show are shows that work globally. Ben 10 is ourlargest global franchise. We are currently in 194 countries,375 million homes in 26 languages. Ben 10 has done morethan $3 billion in consumer products. The Amazing World of Gum-ball is a major global franchise, created by our Cartoon Net-work Europe Studios. It is not only a hit in all our territo-ries, but on November 25, Gumball won its second straightBAFTA for best animated series for kids.” While much of Cartoon’s schedule is developed and pro-

duced at Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank and Europe, thenetwork also acquires and co-produces series. “We have a simple philosophy: best show wins,” Snyder

says. “We invite pitches from everyone. We’ve done morewith Warner Bros. Animation in the last few years than inrecent history. We have The Looney Tunes Show; Scooby-Doo!Mystery Incorporated; the new MAD show; and we launched

DC Nation, a group of shows and shorts based onDC Comics, last March.”Acquisitions include Johnny Test from Cookie Jar and

Total Drama Island from CAKE. Partners include LEGOfor Ninjago, George Lucas for Star Wars: The Clone Wars andDreamWorks Animation for Dragons: Riders of Berk.“We pair our originals with acquired product,” Snyder

says. “We look for shows that fit our brand and our audi-ence. Clone Wars and Dragons are both based on big globalfranchises with boy appeal, great animation, multigener-ational appeal.”Cartoon Network is aimed at kids 6 to 14, with boys 6

to 11 as the “sweet spot,” according to Snyder.

DISNEY’S DNADeBenedittis, whose duties include overseeing the DisneyChannels Worldwide programming strategy team, describesthat role: “From a programming strategy point of view, wehave a U.S. strategy, but we also have a global strategy, andmy job is to connect with all the programmers around theglobe to fully understand how our content is being distrib-uted, how we’re connecting to our audiences, how we’rebuilding our portfolio, how we’re sharing best practices,because at the end of the day our goal is all the same. Ourjob is to grow and make our Disney Channels profitable.”A key factor in reaching that goal is the Disney brand,

probably the best known in family entertainment. “Every-thing we do comes with Disney’s core values,” DeBenedittissays, “and it’s all about relevancy to kids, great storytelling,content that feels especially made for them that they canfind nowhere else. It’s about a celebration of kids, about

Put out the call:Through a deal withrights-holder DHXMedia, Rastamouseairs on CBeebiesfeeds around theworld.

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them believing in themselves. It’s about their family. Wemake sure that that’s always what we focus on.”DeBenedittis says the three Disney networks—Disney

Channel, Disney XD (primarily for boys) and Disney Jun-ior—rely more on original, wholly owned programming thanNickelodeon or Cartoon Network do, and that a large per-centage of the content that airs internationally is from the U.S. “Other territories have to rely on some level of localiza-

tion; they need to be locally relevant in their markets,” hecontinues. “Whether it’s the content or the strategy they’reutilizing, it’s all the same. It’s about sharing that.”

LEARNING TO SHAREThe channels under Disney Channels Worldwide managementare in 167 countries in 35 languages. In addition to its formida-ble U.S. production capability, Disney reaches out to its overseaschannels. “A great example is on XD, an animated series calledRandy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, that is now a global property.”

Randy Cunningham is a Disney Europe commission from theDublin-based Boulder Media (co-producer of The Amazing Worldof Gumball) and Titmouse in the U.S. It premiered in September.“Latin America developed a tween telenovela called Vio-

letta. That is a great example of a local market developing aproperty to service the Latin American region that ultimatelyis being utilized in many markets across Europe, in Russia,and that we will explore at some point for the U.S.”

Violetta, a co-production of Disney Channels in LatinAmerica, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Pol-ka Pro-ducciones in Buenos Aires, premiered in May.Going the other way is the Disney original Good Luck Charlie,

which in 2011 spun off a format on Disney Channel India calledBest of Luck Nikki. “We used the scripts, the shared knowledge ofhow it works in the U.S. from a production standpoint, the mar-keting and scheduling points of view and applied all of that sharedlearning and best practices,” DeBenedittis says.“Each of our platforms is different. We don’t rely on any one

series. We have something like eight hit series that are all deliv-

ering and connecting with ouraudience, with characters theylove and talent they [can relateto]. We just launched Sofia theFirst, first as a movie,” with aseries that followed this year.The November U.S. launch of

Sofia, an animated fairy tale abouta little girl who becomes aprincess, delivered 5.2 milliontotal viewers on Disney Channel,making it the number one cabletelecast of 2012 among kids 2 to5 and girls 2 to 5, the companyreported. The movie and serieswill roll out internationally thisyear on Disney Channels andDisney Junior channels. An important new addition

on Disney XD last year was theMarvel Universe block, whichcomes out of Disney’s 2009acquisition of Marvel. Theblock features Ultimate Spider-

Man and The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Marvel’sAvengers Assemble and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.launch this summer. “Marvel Universe is an example of put-ting the assets together in one place and giving it the pres-ence, the priority, offering the viewer a little more if you’re aMarvel fan, or an animation fan, or superheroes fan,”DeBenedittis says. “It’s a good fit on XD.”In the works for this summer is a crossover special that com-

bines the popular characters of Phineas and Ferb and Marvel Uni-verse characters, including Spider-Man and the Avengers. There isn’t a set formula that DeBenedittis can point to in the

development process, other than adhering to the Disney brand.“We’re always being true to what our voice is, and the Disney rel-evance,” he says. “We’re always looking to reflect our audiencewith a level of diversity of look, talent, background and style.We’re always looking to evolve and do something new that willinspire our audience.”Disney upgraded its online presence last year with the launch

of Watch apps for all three networks. The three apps make fullepisodes of popular shows available on iPhone, iPad and iPodtouch and online. “Digital is an integrated component in what wedo,” he says. “It’s not an afterthought. It’s very much front and cen-ter, part of our über-strategy in the U.S. and globally.”

NICK’S PICKSNickelodeon’s longtime success was built on using comedy toappeal to both boys and girls with series like SpongeBobSquarePants and iCarly.“Nick is, and has always been, one of the most gender-neutral

networks out there,” says Borkent, who acquires content forthe Nickelodeon brands around the world—Nickelodeon,Nick Jr. and Nicktoons. “Our goal is to create a balance acrossour offerings, appealing to both boys and girls. We relaunchedthe Winx franchise and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in theU.S. and internationally in 2012. We are always true to thefact that we want to be there for everybody, which has alwaysgiven us competitive differentiation globally.”

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The cool kids:Following theEuropean success of Studio 100’s House of Anubis, anEnglish-language version was producedfor Nickelodeon in the U.S.

12 TV KIDS

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Following a successful launch last fall, Nick ordered 26additional episodes of Turtles, which will air this year. “Turtlesis our biggest new IP launch in years and a game-changerfor our international business,” Borkent says. Reacting to itsslippage in U.S. ratings last year, Nickelodeon put greatereffort into development, creating what Viacom’s Daumancalled an “avalanche” of new programming.

Borkent says Nickelodeon is debuting 650 new episodesof original programming for the current broadcast season, aswell as launching a programming slate of 14 new series, TVmovies and pilots, including both live action and animation.

“We have a very strong U.S. content pipeline, which is thencomplemented by our regional networks that are doing localproductions,” he continues. “For example, in northern Europe,we launched a brand-new show called Hotel 13. We’re lookingat what has been done in our regions and seeing if some ofthat content can translate. We’ve had great success with Houseof Anubis, which originated in the Netherlands, came to Ger-many, and then we created an English version of it in the U.K.which is airing widely, including on Nickelodeon U.S.” Hotel 13

is co-produced with the Belgium-based Studio 100, Nick’spartner in House of Anubis.

“We have a truly global organization where our content cancome from anywhere,” Borkent continues. “We’re opening thenet really wide with pilots from different creators, people wehaven’t necessarily worked with in the past.”

MOVING TO THE BEATThe balance between live action and animation is pretty mucheven, except in the preschool market, Borkent says. Several ofthe live-action shows, like Victorious and Big Time Rush, aremusic-oriented, a trend that Borkent sees broadening. “A lot ofthose shows have something else as well. They’re not just musicshows. They’re very much grounded in comedy. There’s a lot ofdifferent content out there in the market right now, slightlymore adventure-driven, live-action shows, drama. The amountand variety of content out there now has definitely grown.”

When Borkent acquires programming, especially if it seemsto have multi-territory appeal, he likes to come into the

development process early on.“What we often do...is come in

early, work with them on the showwhile it’s still in development. It is anacquisition, but it’s also a partnership.

You can work with a creator on gettinga show that really fits your network. Wetake a market-by-market approach attimes as well. We do a number of globalacquisitions each year, but there is still aplace for specific acquisitions for individ-ual markets.”

INDEPENDENT SPIRITBesides the big three, there are two nicheplayers in the international kids’ businesswho believe there is room for them, too.

The BBC’s CBeebies channel forpreschoolers takes a somewhat differenttack from most broadcasters, appealing tothe very young. While most preschoolchannels rely almost totally on animation,Henrietta Hurford-Jones, the director forinvestment for CBeebies at BBC World-wide, says younger children also have agreat love for live action.

“They love to see their peers onscreen,” says Hurford-Jones. “In preschool

we’re relatively unusual in doingthat. We have a balance of live

action and animation. We felt therewas room for that.”

CBeebies relies on the BBC’spublic-service brand in the U.K. and

the mix of programming to appealto parents.

“We know the 3-to-6 agegroup is a big spread in thesense of how quickly childrendevelop during those years,”Hurford-Jones says. “We docater to the older and

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14 TV KIDS

Royal treatment:Disney introduced itsnewest princess with aTV movie and followedit up with a full series,Sofia the First.

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younger sides of it. We have different segments and all of themencourage activity outside of television and digital on screen.We have shows like Andy’s Wild Adventures, which uses a live-action host [Andy Day], who is very popular in the U.K.,exploring the world of animals and natural history using green-screen technology and footage from the natural-history unit.”

CBeebies was launched in the U.K. in 2002 and interna-tionally in 2007. It is broadcast in seven languages and useslocal presenters for its live-action shows in Africa, Poland,the Americas, Asia and Australia.

“Local presenters make it feel very local for the kids,” Hurford-Jones says. “Historically, live-action children’s shows don’t travelwell, but I think in the preschool genre they do.”

CBeebies also has a slate of animation coming out this year.The channel began with acquisitions and currently commis-sions or co-produces about 30 percent of its schedule.

Hurford-Jones emphasizes that the channel is still a newplayer internationally. “We’re very aware that we need togrow our audience and our distribution, but in those terri-tories where we do get ratings and we have been around fora few years, we’re beginning to get some amazing feedback,particularly for the parental approval and loyalty to the chan-nel,” she says. “Once people discover it, they tend to stick

around. Disney Junior is tending to move to the 5- to 7-year-olds, now that it is focusing on storytelling. We don’t haveaspirations to suddenly top a 30-year-old brand like DisneyChannel. We’re not in it to fight with those people who dowhat they do very well. We want to bring this particularproposition out into the world where we think there is aplace for us.”

IN THE COMPANY OF KIDSThe London-based KidsCo, which launched in 2007, alsosees an underserved segment of the international kids’market that it can reach. “There are niches out there thatcan be addressed,” says Hendrik McDermott, managingdirector. “We have a couple of things we do specifically totarget niches. The first is that we’re in that 6-to-10 agerange, which I think is underserved internationally. Peopletend to focus more on preschool or a little older. The sec-ond, something that resonates with all our affiliates, is thatwe try to be very safe and nonviolent. That means parentsand affiliates can trust us. That underpins everything we do.In those niches we can compete and challenge.”

McDermott sees KidsCo as still in startup mode. “We’vehad success over the last four years signing up distribution.We have quite a lot of small and midsize platforms. We’vedone a better job with those platforms than our competi-tors. As we grow with those key clients, that’s how we startbeing able to challenge the larger channels. We’ll only beaccepted on those affiliates when we’ve managed toentrench ourselves in the market and slowly acquire pro-gramming. It’s not something you can do on day one unlessyou have a massive investment.”

The channel reaches 15 million subscribers in 18 languagesacross Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Middle East. It iscurrently a noncommercial, subscription ser vice, thoughMcDermott says KidsCo may eventually transform into spon-sorship support or commercial status, based on individual mar-ket circumstances. In May 2012, NBC Universal Internationalacquired a controlling 51-percent stake in KidsCo. The othershareholder is Canada’s Corus Entertainment.

“Most of our programming is acquired from a diversegroup of studios around the world,” McDermott says. “Wehave a variety of animation formats and live action. We docommission original programming. It’s something we’removing into more. We signed a deal with Matchbox Picturesin Australia for original programs.”

In the future, KidsCo will look increasingly to its equitypartners NBCUniversal and Nelvana for development, accord-ing to McDermott. It is also looking to expand its reach. “Wedo the best in Eastern Europe and Asia, in terms of penetra-tion,” he says. “We do very well in countries where othershaven’t. This is where our strategy of going with smaller affil-iates and eventually clinching some of the bigger ones haspaid off. Turkey is a good example, where we have near per-fect penetration. We also do well in Romania and Hungary.Asia is one of those markets where there has not been enoughconsolidation of platforms yet, so there are plenty of plat-forms if you have the bandwidth to get to them, so we con-tinue to grow naturally and relatively quickly in Asia.”

Most important for all these children’s channels is fun,engaging programming that will entertain young viewers andkeep them coming back for more.

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16 TV KIDS

Kids at play: KidsCo,which unveiled a newlook this year, scoredthe global rights forMy Place from theAustralian Children’sTelevision Foundation.

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Delivering shows with a unique visual style has long been a hall-mark of Cyber Group Studios, and it has done so successfully formore than five years. Always on the cutting edge of technology,the French producer-distributor has built a catalogue that coversall animation styles and runs the gamut of target demographics. Thecompany is now focusing on making these properties availableacross numerous platforms and devices. Pierre Sissmann, thechairman and CEO of Cyber Group, talks to TV Kids about thepassion for technology and content creation that is driving thecompany’s growth.

TV KIDS: What is the signature of a Cyber Group production?SISSMANN: A global appeal. Eighty-five percent of our rev-enues are international—they come from outside of France.That’s a unique characteristic for a company.This means that ourshows, by their very essence, have a universal appeal. Also, our preschool and upper-preschool shows offer strongemotional [connections] and core values. We spend a lot of timedeveloping characters that children form an instant bond with;there is an emotional tie between them and the audience. All ofour preschool and upper-preschool shows have stories that focuson a set of values. It is entertainment, but there’s always a mes-sage to it. Ozie Boo! teaches children how to live together. TalesofTatonka is about discovering the world around you. Zou is aboutliving in a family and interpersonal relationships. MademoiselleZazie is about the modern family, diversity and ethnicity.

TV KIDS:What qualities do you look for when acquiring athird-party property?

SISSMANN:We look for shows that, like our own, have uni-versal appeal. We don’t want to take on shows that are goodfor just a couple of markets. That happens; producers makegreat shows that can sell in just two or three countries but notmore. It doesn’t mean that you only take on big brands,because you certainly can take on a totally new concept andsuddenly, boom, it explodes all over the world. We also look at complementarity. For example, we already havethe penguin show Ozie Boo!That means that we’re not going topick up another show with a penguin, or one that has the samemessage of learning to live together. When we picked up CloudBread, we felt that the paper-cut style of 2D animation was fan-tastic; it was a totally different style of animation from what wewere doing. When we chose Animalia two and a half years ago, wehad no CGI shows for the kids’ demographic on our roster. Ani-maliawas based on a great book property, so we picked it up andwe’re still selling and reselling it all over the world.

TV KIDS: How have you been extending your brands in thedigital arena?SISSMANN: A few years ago, we started with Ozie Boo! web-sites. There was no market, though, so we retreated completely. Wetook a step back for a couple of years, because we were busygrowing the company with our productions as well as our stu-dio, and we wanted to really look at the market. It was not, andstill is not, very mature. The U.S. is more advanced, but in Europea lot of people are still wondering how to make money with apps[and other digital extensions]. We decided early last year to take another look at the marketand really be serious about it. We [researched] what had alreadybeen done. Then, in partnership with the French company3DDUO, a prime producer of apps, we moved forward. Justbefore Christmas we released an e-book for Zou. We now planto release a number of e-books, games and apps for Zou, Tatonkaand Ozie Boo!We did not want to just do a French e-book or an Englishe-book, we wanted to be able to do them in Italian, Spanish, tohave the apps everywhere, and so on. We worked on a plan anddecided to release apps in batches of five languages. We are work-ing on the first five languages, and by this time next year I hopewe will be in 10 or 15 languages.

TV KIDS: What are the plans for bringing the Zorro brandto the market?SISSMANN: We acquired the rights from Zorro Productions,Inc. (ZPI), to do a television series called The Chronicles of Zorro.The plan is to bring Zorro back as a franchise for the 8- to 12-year-old and family targets. The series will be an action comedy,done in CGI, and eventually in 3D, with a touch of ethnicityand a lot of diversity. We’re going back to the origins, back to theoriginal books of Johnston McCulley. We are introducing newcharacters, with the approval of ZPI. It will be a young Zorro; inthe show he is 19 years old and has a twin sister.Zorro is such an iconic [character] that we cannot afford toget it wrong or have bad animation or bad scripts. So, we arebringing in top animators and top writers to work on it. We haveinvested a lot in the technology, because we want the CGI seriesto look like it is actually a live-action feature film.France Télévisions has signed on and hopefully the firstepisodes will be on the air by December 2014. We have alreadyreceived a lot of interest from many major broadcasters.

By KristinBrzoznowski

Cyber Group Studios’

PierreSissmann

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