Deals of the Week: eOne, Xumo, Toonz

The streaming wars have a new competitor in the kids space, Retail Monster joins the YouTube licensing fray, and Oscar Wilde gets a spooky film adaptation.
May 15, 2020

eOne

Cartoon Network and Boomerang have picked up exclusive pay-TV broadcast rights to the first season of Entertainment One’s Cupcake & Dino: General Services for Australia and New Zealand. The 52 x 11-minute episodes are set to start airing in the region in July.

Brazilian director Pedro Eboli created the series, which eOne and Brazilian animation studio Birdo co-produce. The six- to 11-skewing show revolves around the comedic exploits of a tiny cupcake and his giant brother doing every job they can get.

International streamers and broadcasters that previously picked up the two season show include Netflix (globally), Pop (UK), Dea Kids (Italy), Teletoon (Canada), Bravokids (Korea) and Disney Channels (LatAm and South East Asia).

Xumo

Free AVOD Xumo is diving into the streaming wars by launching its own kids channel featuring 40 shows. The US streamer picked up a number of shows from Toronto-based WildBrain, including preschool series Teletubbies, Rainbow Ruby and Rev & Roll, as well as all 14 seasons of tween-skewing Degrassi for the aptly named Free Kids TV. It also picked up Bromelia Production’s Lottie Dottie Chicken, Dotzstudioz’ Raggs Nursery RhymesZoomix from Indigenius, Elf Learning For Kids from Glewed TV, and Gummy Bear from Imira Entertainment.

Prior to the launch of Free Kids TV, Xumo only hosted branded channels from other kids content creators, including Pocket.watch, HooplaKidz, Toon Goggles, batteryPOP and Ameba. The ad-supported service is used in 45 million US households via smart TVs, mobile devices, online and streaming boxes.

Mondo TV

A number of international broadcasters and streamers are building their STEM slates with Mondo TV’s Invention Story. Russia (Karusel), TV2 (Hungary), AVOD Kidoodle.TV (global, excluding China), and TIMVISION (Italy) all picked up the Italian producer’s 104 x 11-minute animated series.

The action-comedy is about a creative fox who adventures with friends and makes a new invention every episode. Last month, Mondo TV sold the series to US pay TV company Vme Media for distribution on its English-language network Primo TV.

Haven

Australian licensing agency Haven Global has appointed LA-based Retail Monster as the exclusive US licensing agent for popular kid YouTubers Vlad and Niki. No details have been announced yet on when new products will be launched or what those products will be.

Vlad and Niki’s YouTube channel has racked up more than 19.5 billion views, and has 39.8 million subscribers. Their channel follows the seven and four-year-old brothers as they play games, test toys and sing songs. Last week Haven Global partnered with Hong Kong-based toyco Zuru to launch a range of toys and games for the YouTubers in 2021.

Toonz 

Flying into a spooky new partnership, Indian animation studio Toonz Media Group has teamed up with UK prodcos Space Age Films and Sprout Pictures to co-produce an animated feature-film adaption (pictured) of Oscar Wilde’s book The Canterville Ghost.

Toonz will handle production, while Sprout and Space Age will tackle pre and post. Directed by Kim Burdon (Fireman Sam), the family-friendly feature is in pre-production and set for delivery in 2021. The comedy tracks a British ghost living in his ancestral home until his peace and solitude is ruined by an American family who move in and won’t be scared away.

About The Author
News editor for Kidscreen. Ryan covers tech, talent and general kids entertainment news, with a passion for kids rap content and video games. Have a story that's of interest to Kidscreen readers? Contact Ryan at rtuchow@brunico.com

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