APC Studios has sold off its majority stake in kids content distributor APC Kids to three-year-old French prodco Madgic in order to streamline its business and focus more on scripted content. 

APC Kids’ catalogue boasts animated and live-action series including TeamTO’s Jade Armor and Angelo Rules, Isadora Moon (Kelebek Media) and High Hoops (CanCan Productions). The company also runs its own production studio, Zephyr Animation. 

Lionel Marty will retain his minority stake and stay on as CEO of both Zephyr and APC Kids, which he says will start operating under a new name to be announced next month. 

Jean-Michael Spiner founded Madgic in 2022 as a holding company for subsidiaries Label Anim and 2 Minutes. He started up 2 Minutes 25 years ago, and some of the indie studio’s productions include 2D-animated series Rosie (which aired on Gulli from 2011 to 2014) and Memories of Nanette for M6 (2017), which is distributed by APC Kids. 

At the heart of this deal is APC Kids’ desire to work with a company that’s better aligned with its children’s content focus, Marty tells Kidscreen. APC Kids has been with APC Studios for 10 years, and the partnership has been a good one. But the priorities and expertise of the kids business versus the broader entertainment industry are currently disconnected in the market. 

“It’s better for us to have a strategic partner that’s closer to what we do in the development, financing and distribution [of kids content],” says Marty. “We can integrate the know-how and expertise of 2D and CG animation with Madgic, and become more crucial [to partners] in a world where it’s harder to find new shows.” 

To this end, APC Kids is already in talks with Madgic about international co-productions. Marty will be at Annecy looking to finalize financing on a stop-motion animated series called Mogu & Perol that APC Kids developed with France Télévisions and Japan’s Dwarf Studios. The goal is to greenlight production by the end of this year. 

CanCan Productions is also producing a second season of live-action series High Hoops, which CBBC premiered in March and which has also been picked up by ABC Australia.