Category: Kids

MUMBAI: Universal Studios Home Entertainment (USHE), a division of Universal Studios, is set to release an animated feature Barbie and The Three Musketeers on 15 September.

The DVD, priced at $19.98 (Rs 964.017), features Barbie as a courageous heroine. Reinterpreted with a Barbie twist, this classic tale is packed with humour, superb animation and enchanting music.

Barbie exemplifies girl power as she courageously stands beside her trusty companions through good times and bad, learning valuable lessons about loyalty and teamwork.

The DVD also includes a Barbie (TM) Pink Ticket Party instant win game piece, and also a chance to win a trip to Los Angeles.

The DVD also comes with bonus features such as All For One and Unbelievable music video, Bloopers, I Can Be a Songwriter and Behind the Scenes: Barbie fashion show.

MUMBAI: Kids‘ entertainment channel is set to premiere Johnny goes to Bollywood on 21 June.

The movie will be aired at 9:30 am.

Johnny goes to Bollywood Johnny taps Bravo‘s exciting trip to Bollywood where all the Masala and adventure begins. Johnny Bravo is on top of the world in Mumbai: women want him, men want to be him.

But when a fancy new Bollywood (Jiggy‘s Jiggalicious) hair gel makes Johnny totally irresistible to absolutely everyone, he‘s forced to embark on a mad Bollywood masala adventure to find a cure for his love Mojo.

MUMBAI: The Walt Disney Company is planning to roll out its Disney XD channel in the United Kingdom.

The channel, which will replace Jetix in UK, is already present in the US and launched in France this April.

Disney XD, aimed at the 6-to-14 year olds, will feature Disney-branded new and library programming. It will also feature local acquisitions.

The channel will launch in conjunction with the website DisneyXD.co.uk.

“Disney XD will capitalise on all of the assets across the Company to make it the leading boy-focused entertainment platform in the UK and around the world,” said Disney Channels U.K. and Ireland general manager Boel Ferguson.

MUMBAI: CBBC continues its commitment to educating and entertaining young minds with two new science series.

Space Hoppers is a new seven half an hour interplanetary adventure featuring physicist Professor Brian Cox and, following the success of the first season of Richard Hammond‘s Blast Lab, there will be a further 26 episode season of the science-based gameshow.

CBBC controller Anne Gilchrist, who commissioned both series says, “It‘s great for CBBC to have two such powerful science series. It is perfect inspirational material for an audience which is constantly curious about the world around them and how it works.”These programmes are part of CBBC‘s commitment to producing 550 hours of factual programming in 2009/10.

Space Hoppers will launch in 2010, the BBC‘s Year of Science, and is being made in conjunction with BBC Science‘s series Seven Wonders Of The Solar System, which will also be presented by Professor Cox.

In Space Hoppers, intrepid travelers Dan and Steve team up with Brian to investigate worlds beyond our planet and try to find out exactly what you would need to do to take a holiday in outer space

and do a bit of space hopping.

They will delve into the wonders of the Solar System, blending global adventures with explosive experiments, and quirky animation with state-of-the-art CGI.

In each episode, Dan, Steve and Brian will explore a holiday-related theme, from holidays in (or on) the Sun to volcano-spotting. Their search will take in extreme environments, wild weather and the best places in the Solar System to “enjoy” a bit of snow and ice.

Space Hoppers is a collaboration between the London Factual department and CBBC. It will be executive produced for CBBC by Peter Davies and for Factual by Andrew Cohen. The Series Producer is John Piper.

The first series of Richard Hammond‘s Blast Lab, broadcast earlier this year, was a success for CBBC, peaking with a 23.3 per cent share with 6 to 12-year-old viewers.

The series is set in a fictitious underground laboratory in the grounds of his supposed stately home. Richard invites two groups of three friends into his lab to take part in his crazy experiments and compete against each other to win prizes.

Each show focuses on a different scientific theme and experiments are designed to have true ‘take away‘ value, so children can seek to replicate these at home if they wish.

MUMBAI: UK pubcaster the BBC‘s commercial arm BBC Worldwide has confirmed global distribution rights for ZingZillas, a new commission for CBeebies.

The new musical show for pre-schoolers will swing onto CBeebies next year.

BBC Worldwide has confirmed global distribution rights for TV, merchandise, DVD and publishing and is set to unveil commercial plans to the industry at trade fairs later in 2009.

BBC Worldwide Children‘s and Licensing MD Neil Ross Russell says, “We have extensive expertise in creating innovative licensing programmes for pre-school programmes and I’ve no doubt that ZingZillas will ‘strike a chord‘ with pre-schoolers across the world.”

CBeebies controller Michael Carrington adds, “It‘s time for a new kind of music show on CBeebies which will funk up the channel and get all of our toddlers and tots grooving on down to the ZingZillas sound.”

MUMBAI

: Disneynature has acquired the North American and Mexican distribution rights to the underwater film OceanWorld 3D, the feature length nature documentary filmed and released in 3D.

This deal marks the first collaboration between Disneynature and 3D Entertainment, a company founded in 2001 to produce 3D story-driven experiences for audiences of all ages.

The 85-minute feature film will be released theatrically in France and Russia starting this August. The film‘s North America debut will be announced at a later date.

Disneynature EVP and GM Jean-Francois Camilleri said, “This is exactly the kind of film that Disneynature is striving to make, and it delivers an incomparable level of quality and craftsmanship. 3D Entertainment set out to create the most extraordinary underwater adventure ever captured on film, and they have exceeded all expectations with ‘OceanWorld 3D.”

OceanWorld 3D takes moviegoers on a journey that captures the beauty and diversity of the oceans. Guided by a sea turtle, viewers will enjoy a close-up look from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and Argentina‘s Peninsula Valdez to Mexico‘s Roca Partida Island which is the home to thousands of sharks.

MUMBAI: Turner Broadcasting is rolling out a website in UK for Cartoon Network (CN) on 16 June.

The site will offer ‘MY CN‘, a social networking service allowing children to interact using a variety of child-safe pre-selected messages. The look and feel of the site can be customised by changing backgrounds and choosing avatars based on CN-based characters.

CN series including Ben 10, Bakugan, PowerPuff Girls, Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be included in the site along with games and videos.

Versions of the website will be launched in Spain, Germany, Italy

, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Romania. Advertisers can also leverage the new site by interacting with their audiences. They can also integrate their messaging into the site‘s offering.

MUMBAI: The home entertainment market seems to be the next moolah generating pie for kids‘ broadcasters in India.

Cartoon Network is planning to venture into the home video market within two months, a space occupied only by Walt Disney. Nick is also readying its entry and will be tying up with Excel Home Entertainment to launch its top-rated properties like Dora and Spongebob into the home video market.

“We are currently in talks with major distributors and plan to enter the home video market in the next two months,” says Cartoon Network Enterprises VP – Asia Pacific Dulce Lim-Chen, while refusing to divulge further details.

Disney Channel is already active in this space with its various television series. It recently launched Disney Fairies, a new category to only cater to the home vide market. The first to role out under this category was Tinkerbell.

Kids broadcasters believe that with the emergence of more players in the home entertainment category and with an increase in kids‘ content, the home video segment is poised for growth.”It is not only a potential revenue stream for the content providers in the form of royalties, but also helps in enhancing engagement with the target group outside the television viewing hours,” says Viacom18 Media VP-consumer products Sandeep Dahiya.
Excel Home Video managing director MN Kapasi feels that kids TV content on home video is still an insignificant market, but it helps in the brand-building process of any kids‘ channel.

Cartoon Network is also exploring other revenue opportunities in India. Its consumer products division, Cartoon Network Enterprises (CNE), will be entering into publishing and console gaming.CNE has set up an in-house publishing division to extend Cartoon Network content into print form. “Until now we had been partnering with various publishers worldwide to develop stories on print that were based on our characters. But now that we see a lot of potential in this segment, we have decided to extend this content into print. As part of this new initiative, we will be launching 150 books by the year-end,” says Lim-Chen.
As part of its 2009 plan, CNE will also establish Gwen (female character from Ben 10) to build its merchandise portfolio.

“Apart from the new businesses, we will be further expanding our presence in India through promotional licensing, food and beverages and personal care products,” Lim-Chen says.

CNE is expecting a 25-35 per cent growth in its revenues from licensing and merchandising this year, adds Lim-Chen.

MUMBAI: The National Geographic Society in the US is inviting youngsters from around the world to enter the See the Bigger Picture photography contest.

They can submit images illustrating plants, animals or anything else that captures biodiversity to www.seethebiggerpicture.org. The winner will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., and will meet with photojournalist Joel Sartore, a contest judge. Entries must be received by 8 September.

See the Bigger Picture is a joint project of Airbus, National Geographic and the Secretariat of the Convention of Biological Diversity in support of The Green Wave. This is an outreach program that promotes the goals of the United Nations biodiversity treaty and that will contribute to the celebration of the International Year of Biodiversity in 2010.

As part of “The Green Wave” project, children and youth in schools worldwide plant a local tree species on 22 May each year, uniting to send a green wave across time zones from east to west.

The organisers hope that the contest will encourage children around the globe to snap and submit a photograph illustrating biodiversity in their community or from their travels and help to create the world’s largest biodiversity outreach programme.

Sartore says, “I am thrilled that Airbus is getting behind the biodiversity photo contest. If we stand a chance of preserving the delicate balance of life and protecting the future of the fragile planet I’ve been photographing for 20 years, big business must be involved. It’s great to involve kids, too, and to motivate them to take notice of the environment around them. I hope this will be a fun summer project for them.”

MUMBAI: Television series The Zula Patrol, in association with IBM

, has rolled out ZulaWorld.com, an online destination for kids ages six and above.

“Our goal is to inspire natural curiosity about science of young kids so that they become inquisitive life-long learners. IBM has helped to extend our mission to create an entertaining, content-rich kids‘ sites,” said The Zula Patrol creator Deborah Manchester.

Inside ZulaWorld.com, users can create their own avatar, fly their own spaceship and make discoveries about how things work as they explore the cosmos.

The basic levels of game play are available for free on the website. For premier games subscription rates are: $5.99 for one month, $29.99 for six months, and $49.99, one year.

The Zula Patrol airs Saturday mornings on NBC as part of the qubo programming block and weekdays and weekends on public television stations.