HIT Entertainment has completed 51 sales of its preschool programs, including animated hits Thomas & Friends, Angelina Ballerina and Bob the Builder, to broadcasters all over the world.
The U.K.-based entertainment company says 31 of the deals will see programs air on new broadcast platforms.
Here’s a show-by-show breakdown of the deals:
Thomas & Friends: 13 new contracts have been inked for Thomas & Friends, one of the world’s most popular preschool brands. Five of these will see Thomas air on new broadcast platforms Canal Panda (Portugal), ATV (Turkey), Al Jazeera Kids (Middle East Arabic), RTV (Slovenia) and Yoopa (Canada), while TV4 (Sweden) and MTV3 (Finland) have licensed their first CG Thomas series. The remaining sales have been to Nick Jr (UK), France 5 (France), TV2 (Norway), CYBC (Cyprus), IETV (Israel) and RTE (Ireland).
Bob the Builder: 13 broadcasters have also acquired series’ of Bob the Builder, four of whom will be broadcasting it for the first time – Canal Panda (Portugal), NOS (Holland), DeAKids (Italy), ATV (Turkey) — while three long-time Bob broadcasters are taking their first Bob CG series: VRT (Belgium), SVT (Sweden) and TV2 (Norway). The deals with Sweden and Norway mean that audiences across all of Scandinavia will now be able to enjoy the brand with TV2 (Denmark) and MTV3 (Finland) already broadcasting Bob. The remaining six broadcasters extending their portfolio of Bob programming comprise RTE (Ireland), CYBC (Cyprus), TV Barrandov (Czech Republic), Super RTL (Germany), IETV (Israel) and Thailand PBS (Thailand).
Angelina Ballerina: HIT has continued the global roll out of CG-animated Angelina Ballerina – The Next Steps, with eight new deals recently signed. First-time broadcast platforms include Minimax (Hungary, Romania and Poland), RTP (Portugal), Piwi (France), DeAKids (Italy) and ATV (Turkey), with broadcasters RTE (Ireland), CYBC (Cyprus) and IETV (Israel), who had shown the previous 2D animation, extending their relationship with the brand.
Fireman Sam: Seven new broadcasters have recently signed deals for‘Fireman Sam: RTL (Holland), VTM (Belgium) Minimax (Hungary, Romania & Poland), Piwi (France), ATV (Turkey), TV Barrandov (Czech Republic) and RTV (Slovenia),
Rainbow Magic: HIT has sold its TV special Return to Rainspell Island to Cartoon Network (UK) and Canal Plus (France). Based on the highly popular Rainbow Magic books, this is the first time the brand has been available to audiences on TV.
Little Charlie Bear, Monkey See, Monkey Do & Shelldon: In its capacity as distribution agent, HIT Entertainment has sold the broadcast rights to Chapman’s Little Charlie Bear, Monkey See, Monkey Do from Smartoonz and Shelldon, produced by Shelldon Entertainment Co. New series Little Charlie Bear has been bought by Hop! (Israel), Minimini (Poland), RTE (Ireland), Al-Jazeera Kids (Middle East) and S4C (Wales), rounding out a series of presales deals brokered by HIT including CBeebies (U.K.), ABC (Australia) and three Scandinavian public broadcasters. Dance-a-long production Monkey See, Monkey Do, which last autumn debuted on Sprout in the United States, has been acquired by Thailand PBS. And the newest title in HIT’s distribution catalog, Shelldon, has been sold to IETV (Israel) and Al-Jazeera Kids (Middle East Arabic).
