Toronto’s Guru Studio has signed a distribution deal with AVOD platform The Roku Channel to launch its 2D-animated series Big Blue (pictured) in the US.
Targeting five- to nine-year-olds, the 52 x 11-minute toon will drop into the streamer’s dedicated Kids & Family section sometime in 2024.
Big Blue is a comedy-adventure about two siblings who lead a submarine crew dedicated to uncovering and solving underwater mysteries.
Canadian pubcaster CBC Kids premiered the series in 2021, and it now airs on international networks including Nickelodeon/Nicktoons (UK), ABC Kids (Australia) and Cartoon Network (Africa). Plus, EBS (South Korea), RTS (Switzerland), RTVE’s Clan TV (Spain) and MBC Group (Middle East) all have plans to launch Big Blue later this year.
In other Guru news, the animation studio recently inked five distribution deals for Singapore-based Omens Studios’ preschool series 123 Number Squad!. The new partners are TRT (Turkey), Canal Panda (Portugal), Canal+ (Poland), PCCW (Hong Kong) and HRT (Croatia), and they join existing broadcasters Youku (China), MBC (Middle East) and Hop! (Israel).
Singaporean broadcaster Mediacorp commissioned the CG-animated series about number-loving kids, and Sky Kids in the UK premiered it earlier this year. Guru started managing worldwide distribution and consumer products rights in 2022.