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Tag: Toonz Media Group

  • Toonz and 1st Place draw up anime alliance to counter Japan’s talent drought

    Toonz and 1st Place draw up anime alliance to counter Japan’s talent drought

    MUMBAI: India’s Toonz Media group and Japan’s 1st Place have sketched out a strategic partnership on the fringes of Hong Kong Filmart, aiming to quench the world’s thirst for anime content while addressing Japan’s creative talent crunch.

    The tie-up comes as streaming giants, gaming moguls and entertainment behemoths scramble for fresh anime fodder, leaving Japan’s traditional animation houses gasping for artistic air.

    “There is already a significant talent shortage in Japan for anime production,” admitted 1st Place founder and president Kumiko, without a hint of artistic licence. “This strategic partnership with Toonz will help us bridge that gap by expanding our production capacity.”

    The artistic marriage melds Toonz’s 25-year animation pedigree and production muscle with 1st Place’s flair for anime storytelling, music production and 3D computer-generated wizardry.

    “At Toonz, we continuously seek new creative frontiers,” expounded Toonz Media group CEO P. Jayakumar, whose past dalliances include teaming up with Marvel on Wolverine and the X-Men and with Lionsgate on Speed Racer: The Next Generation.

    The Indian animation outfit views the partnership as a chance to colour itself into the booming anime picture, while Tokyo-based 1st Place brings 20 years of developing original intellectual property to the drawing board. The Japanese firm has previously orchestrated theme songs and soundtracks for anime tearjerker Clannad After Story and supernatural romp Angel Beats!

    Both firms hope their cross-continental coupling will create a sustainable anime ecosystem capable of delivering eye-popping content to worldwide audiences without succumbing to the industry’s capacity constraints—a picture-perfect solution to a most animated problem.

  • Toonz Media Group to bring animation series to markets ahead of Mipcom

    Toonz Media Group to bring animation series to markets ahead of Mipcom

    Mumbai: Toonz Media Group’s Toonz Entertainment announced on Wednesday that it has closed strategic partnership deals with UK-based V&S Entertainment and Australia-based Pop Family Entertainment to bring their exciting animation series Everything’s Rosie and Bubble Bath Bay to the market ahead of Mipcom.

    In other exciting news, Toonz has also partnered with US-based GoldieBlox to distribute the live-action series Hack Along with GoldieBlox, The Goldie Squad Show, Toy Hackers, Curiosity Kitchen, Curiosity Camp, Camp GoldieBlox, Goldie Bots, Fast Forward Girls, and Draw Her Life.

    “We are thrilled to launch these amazing shows from some of the best in the industry, like Pop Family Entertainment, V&S Entertainment, and GoldieBlox for Mipcom this year. It is with great pleasure that we are announcing that we will be representing their shows for distribution in different markets,” said Toonz Media Group syndication & feature films division president of distribution Bruno Zarka.

    Toons will have exclusive distribution rights of 104 episodes of Everything’s Rosie (for Latam, Iberia, US, and Canada) and 52 episodes of Bubble Bath Bay (excluding Australia, New Zealand and Japan).

    Everything’s Rosie is a top-rated HD CGI animation for preschool children, promoting social, emotional, cognitive, and physical educational values that encourage learning through play. Aimed at girls and boys aged 3-6 years, the series follows the adventures of little girl Rosie and her friends Will, Holly, Big Bear, Oakley, the ancient Oak Tree and Raggles, the blue rabbit.

    Everything’s Rosie creator and V&S Entertainment CEO Vickie Corner commented, “We’re very proud to be collaborating with Toonz Media on Everything’s Rosie.  Kids love consuming large amounts of content, but parents look for quality, too; something that will interest and intrigue their little ones, inspiring them to be good role models and promoting kindness and friendship. Everything’s Rosie embodies these qualities, offering preschool children the chance to enjoy wholesome age-appropriate stories while learning important life skills. We’re excited for Toonz to bring Rosie to a wider multi-language audience, in addition to the 170 territories where the show already has a footprint.”

    Created by Gareth Eden-Styche, Bubble Bath Bay is produced in association with Shambles Entertainment. The brand-new 3D animated preschool series features best friends Sydney the Sailboat and Zip the Water Taxi. The preschool series shows how they learn to ride the waves alongside their fleet of friends in bustling Bubble Bath Bay.

    Pop Family Entertainment CEO & executive producer Carmel Travers said, “POP Family is thrilled to be working with Toonz Media on Bubble Bath Bay. Our production partners, Telegael Ireland and Lemon Sky Malaysia, have produced a beautiful series that celebrates early childhood friendship, learning and fun in the coastal world of Bubble Bath Bay, inspired by one of the most beautiful harbours in the world. We look forward to expanding on the brand as Toonz Media takes the series out to a global audience.”

    Toonz will run GoldieBlox live-action series for 3–11 minutes per episode and will be available in English and all languages of the territory worldwide.

  • Aabid Surti and Biren Ghose to be honoured at Animation Masters Summit 2022

    Aabid Surti and Biren Ghose to be honoured at Animation Masters Summit 2022

    Mumbai: Renowned artist, writer and activist Aabid Surti and animation industry veteran and Technicolor Creative Studios country head Biren Ghose will be honoured at the 2022 edition of the Animation Masters Summit that will be held virtually between 23-27 May.

    Organised by Toonz Media Group, the five-day summit will include sessions by stalwarts in the fields of media and entertainment across the world. Google India country head Sanjay Gupta will deliver a keynote address at the inaugural session. The master sessions in the following days will be led by well-known artists and creators including Belgian director-producer Paul Demeyer who has worked on shows like “Mission Force One,” “The Rocketeer” and “The Rugrats” series and film, Emmy award-winning composer Wendel Harris, best known for supervising the music for the Netflix sitcom “Family Reunion,” Ravishankar Venkateswaran maker of the first Sanskrit animation feature “Punyakoti,” Ogilvy India chief creative officer Sukesh Nayak and NFT ecosystem GuardianLink co-founder and chief technology officer Arjun Reddy.

    “Animation Masters Summit is Toonz’s flagship annual event where we provide a platform for young artists and students to interact with veterans in the field art and entertainment,” said Toonz Media Group CEO P Jayakumar. “The AMS awards have been instituted to honour legends in the field of art. Aabid Surti is a true legend in this regard, having made his mark in multiples streams of art from painting to cartoon, to writing. After a scintillating career of more than 60 years, he continues to work tirelessly focusing more on social and environmental issues now. He is an inspiration for not just artists but for everyone. It is a privilege for us to present this year’s Legend Award to Surti.”

    “Biren Ghose, who is being awarded the Special Contribution Award, has helped build the AVGC ecosystem in India with his visionary leadership. As a mentor and industry spokesperson, he also played a significant role in fostering a strong and cohesive animation and VFX community in India,” added Jayakumar.

    At 87, Aabid Surti, has made significant contributions towards popularising cartoons and graphic novels in Indian languages in a career spanning over six decades. He is the creator of several memorable characters such as ‘Dhabbuji,’ ‘Inspector Azad,’ ‘Doctor Chinchu’ and the much-loved Indrajal comic superhero ‘Bahadur.’ A prolific author, he bagged the National Award in 1993 for his short story series titled “Teesri Aankh.” Having passed out of one of India’s oldest art institutions the JJ School of Art in Mumbai, Surti is also an acclaimed painter known for experimenting and developing innovative and critically acclaimed painting techniques. In recent years, Surti has made a mark with his trailblazing activism in water conservation through his organization Drop Dead Foundation, which was started as an initiative to provide free plumbing service for residents in suburban Mumbai. Surti personally leads his NGO in fixing an average of around 400 taps a year after visiting close to a thousand homes.

    Technicolor Creative Studios country head and industry leader, Biren Ghose is a prominent figure in the Indian AVGC (Animation Visual Effects Gaming and Comics) scene. As a thought leader and business head of some of the most prominent entertainment companies, Ghose has made significant contributions in the growth and development of the AVGC ecosystem in India over the years. He also holds several important roles in government and quasi-government agencies, institutions and trade bodies.

  • Discovery Kids to premiere new animated series on 18 April

    Discovery Kids to premiere new animated series on 18 April

    Mumbai: Discovery Kids is launching a new animated series ‘Bunty Billa aur Babban’ on 18 April at 1 pm and 7 pm from Monday to Friday. The slap-stick comedy series is produced by Toonz Media Group.

    The show follows the contrasting duo Bunty (the parrot) and Billa (the cat) who live in the same house. While Billa’s ambitions rest in living an easy life, he is annoyed with the hysterics of Bunty who never stops troubling him. Bunty unleashes mayhem in the house, inciting chaos, and confusion everywhere. Babban, the donkey also joins the duo, escalating the fun conflicts and comic situations. The Bollywood-inspired voiceover enhances the entertainment quotient.

    “We are on a journey of innovating our offerings and creating franchises out of characters that not only engage but also help expand our consumer footprint and provide a healthy dose of entertainment,” said Discovery Kids business head Uttam Pal Singh.

    “Bunty Billa aur Babban – the slap-stick comedy is a fun addition to our existing differentiated IPs including stylish and action-packed superhero in town ‘Little Singham’ and best slice-of-life school comedy ‘Fukrey Boyzzz’. It will further cement Discovery Kids’ position as the most preferred brand in the kids’ category,” he added.

    “This is Toonz’s first collaboration with Discovery Kids and we are really happy to forge this association with ‘Bunty Billa aur Babban’, which is a show that has tremendous potential to turn into a hugely successful kids IP,” added Toonz Media Group CEO P Jayakumar.

    “The show brings back the innocent charm of playfulness and hearty humour, with many beautiful moments to engage and enrapture the young audience,” he added.

  • Toonz Media Group revives iconic show ‘Swat-Kats’ after 28 years

    Toonz Media Group revives iconic show ‘Swat-Kats’ after 28 years

    Mumbai: Animation company Toonz Media Group has teamed up with show creators Christian and Yvon Tremblay to co-produce a brand-new series of “Swat-Kats” 28 years after the original series was produced.

    The new series “Swat-Kats Reovlution” will be co-produced by Tremblay Bros. and Toonz Media Group and will be targeted at five to 11-year-olds. It will include new characters alongside the classic protagonists and villains.  

    “While ‘Swat-Kats Revolution’ is a new series, the DNA of what made it successful will remain,” said Christian Tremblay. “The character relationships, the smart and witty writing, the action, the imaginative stories, and the bigger-than-life villains will evermore be present. The new series will be contemporary and explore themes that the new audience will identify with.”

    “’Swat-Kats’ is easily one of the all-time classics in animation,” said Toonz Media Group CEO P Jayakumar. “It is a privilege for Toonz to revive this iconic show after all these years. We see tremendous potential for the property in the new context and among new audiences. We cannot wait to bring life to the new series under the supervision of Christian and Yvon.

    “Swat-Kats Revolution” is also set in the fictional mega-metropolis of Megakat City, where the two vigilante heroes fight off evil powers to keep their city from becoming a dystopian world. The series will be distributed worldwide by Toonz.

    “We are thrilled to enter into a strategic collaboration with Tremblay Bros for ‘Swat-Kats Revolution’ new franchise to bring the two iconic heroes into new contemporary stories and conflicts toward their nemesis,” said Toonz chief sales and marketing officer Bruno Zarka.

    “Swat-Kats” first aired in September 1993. The original series “Swat-Kats: The Radical Squadron” produced by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons became the number one syndicated animated show of 1994. The show was admired by viewers for its bold and eye-catching animation style, power-packed action, and energetic rock and roll background score besides its iconic theme music.

    The show, which gained cult status in the ‘90s, enjoys immense fan following across the world. SK Fandom, as the fan community of the series is popularly known, has kept the show alive amongst the community over the years through discussions, fan fiction, artwork, and a variety of fan projects and games over online groups and forums. The fan community had also raised substantial sums to revive the show through a Kickstarter fundraising campaign a few years ago.

  • Toonz Media Group launches kids TV channel in Indonesia

    Toonz Media Group launches kids TV channel in Indonesia

    Mumbai: Toonz Media Group is launching a new kids TV channel in Indonesia. The 24X7 pay-TV channel Toonz kids will be available on Indonesia’s satellite TV network Transvision. The channel will go on air on 14 November.

    The bilingual channel will include shows in both Bahasa and English, and is targeted at four to 12-year-olds. This will be Toonz’s maiden television channel in Asia, said the statement.

    “Indonesia has a fast-growing kids entertainment industry and we felt it would be the best place to launch the expansion of our platform entertainment business,” said Toonz Media Group chief executive officer P Jayakumar. “We will be banking on Toonz’s 22 year old legacy in the industry and our strong multi-genre library with 1000+ hours of content. Toonz Kids will bring this world class content to kids and families in Indonesia, dubbed in native Bahasa.”

    Toonz had announced expansion of its platform entertainment business in October this year with the constitution of its new SBU Toonz Media Networks. The company has roped in former Zee Entertainment chief operating officer Mukund Cairae to head the SBU. After Indonesia, Toonz plans to launch television channels in other emerging kids’ television markets such as Malaysia, Singapore and MENA (Middle East and North Africa). The company already operates kids channels in select key global territories.

    “Indonesia has the largest television market and the second largest pay TV market in South-East Asia. The country has around 67 million homes and a TV penetration of 64 per cent, which translates to around 42 million TV homes. This includes a pay TV penetration of 12 per cent. If you look at the average revenue per user for pay TV in Indonesia, it is a healthy $10 per home per month. Clearly, there is huge potential for growth of pay TV business here,” said Toonz Media Networks president Mukund Cairae.

    He added that Toonz Kids will focus on edutainment and entertainment shows while also looking to explore content partnerships through animation co-productions with local companies in Indonesia. “We will be actively pursuing content partnerships to co-create premium content, including e-Sports, to engage the tweens and teens besides the kids audience category,” Cairae said. 

    Cloud broadcasting and live TV streaming company Amagi is the playout and transmission partner for Toonz Kids. Toonz already has a formidable presence in the digital media space with a robust YouTube ecosystem comprising of 18 YouTube channels and 18 million plus subscribers. Earlier this year the company had launched its own OTT platform MyToonz. Besides this, Toonz also has content syndication partnerships with world’s top kids’ VoD platforms including Roku, Kidoodle, Amazon Prime, Pluto TV, and many more.

    “This is the first international kids’ channel fully dubbed in Bahasa Indonesia. In line with our tagline, ‘broadcasting at the edge of technology’ we always strive to provide entertaining, quality, and educational content for all of our viewers,” said Transvision sales and marketing director Brando Tengdom. “We sincerely hope this partnership will accommodate our customer needs, as well as become an attractive point for our customer to access Transvision services.”

  • Mukund Cairae to head media networks division at Toonz

    Mukund Cairae to head media networks division at Toonz

    Mumbai: Close on the heels of launching its OTT platform, global kids and family entertainment player Toonz Media Group has appointed former Zee Entertainment chief operating officer Mukund Cairae to give strategic leadership to the new SBU, that seeks to expand to more territories in the next two years.

    Toonz Media Group is all set to venture deeper into the platform entertainment business and has constituted a new SBU – Toonz Media Networks – with the aim of widening the scope of the company’s platform business.

    Apart from its well-established YoutTube ecosystem as well as television channels in Russia and LATAM, Toonz Media Networks SBU will supervise the launch of the group’s new linear television channels in the fast-growing kids’ television markets of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore & MENA, said the company in a statement on Thursday.

    With 1000+ hours of content in multiple genres ranging from pre-school to tween as well as the family audience, Toonz will bank on its rich library to bring world-class shows and films to families across the world via the mini screen, it added.

    “I think this is the right time for Toonz to focus more on platform entertainment. The content industry is booming around the world and demand for kids’ content, especially, is unprecedented,” said Toonz Media Group, CEO, P Jayakumar. “We have consolidated our position as a leading kids and family entertainment company in the last 20+ years, with a diverse portfolio of businesses ranging from animation production to emerging technologies.”

    “The idea is to monetise Toonz’s content in various geographies across the globe, especially in the emerging markets, via our in-house content delivery platforms,” said Toonz Media Networks, president, Mukund Cairae. “Toonz will partner with telcos as well as digital platforms to launch channels in these geographies. This includes both linear and on-demand channels. For on-demand platform, we will start off with the Middle East market.”

    Cairae added that apart from the market potential, each of these geographies have been identified based on the scope for revenue capturing and effective content repurposing, in order to make it relevant and adaptable to the local markets. As part of this, Toonz’s home-grown content will be dubbed into a slew of global languages like Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, Arabic, Urdu, Thai, French, and Swahili.

    Additionally, Toonz will also be actively pursuing content partnerships in these regions to co-create premium content, including e-Sports, to engage the tweens and teens besides the kids audience category.

  • India’s quest for good animated content

    India’s quest for good animated content

    MUMBAI: If you don't give the audience what they want, someone else will. Kids' content producers and broadcasters have figured out that Indian kids want relatable and even local characters.

    The OTTV Kids and Animation Summit 2018 saw a session on the making of home-grown characters with panelists Punnaryug Artvision founder Ashish Kulkarni, Toonz Media Group content alliance and partnerships SAARC Kishor Srivastav, Green Gold Animation chief strategy officer Srinivas Chilakalapudi, Graphiti Multimedia director and COO Munjal Shroff and Sony Yay head of programming Ronojoy Chakraborty. Dveo Media CEO Deepak Ramsurrun moderated the panel.

    Highlighting more about the making of home-grown characters, Shroff said that it should keep kids engaged and enable them to dream about it. Adding to Shroff’s point, Kulkarni said that when he started, he had to look at the heritage characters as they didn’t have the liberty to use those projects in other countries because they didn’t have the support from government to produce original content. "There was support for content services but not for content creation. The challenge here is that we are struggling with budgets to create our original content. When you create a character, there are certain things to be taken into consideration. First is that kids don’t understand sequel. Second is that kids would like to see the same character that they relate to. So when you touch upon the heritage, you cannot create 150 episodes of repetitions. The start, middle and end of the story should be in that 11-22 minute episode and they should be able to find themselves inside the characters.”

    Commenting on the same, Srivastav said that while creating original content, we need to see the channel’s feedback and proper research is to be conducted on industry trends and need gap. He added, “We consider the steal character while making an original content, which means, how the character speaks, what they wear and what effect they have on their storyline and background of the character is also important.”

    Chakraborty chipped in saying that according to their research kids love remote control cars and that is why they came up with a show named Kicko and Super Speedo. He said that they also found out that that kids love funky hairstyles, clothes etc.

    When asked about the aspects being considered while making a localised show, Kulkarni said people need to find new content. One should look at the economics, which plays a major role. The key to animation content is powerful idea, powerful character and the ability to tell hundreds of stories in the same plot.

    “I have never sold my IPs to anyone till date; I only gave licensing rights to the channels. So it depends how you want to do it and why you want to do it. If you are selling the IPs, there’s a lot of creative people tampering with the content around. The dilemma that we have with this country and the struggle that we are facing since the last decade is that the price gaps of 22 minutes caps around Rs 12 lakh or Rs 20-25 lakh and that is the challenge to build quality content," he said.

    Only if people are willing to fund animation will we see a future where Indian content is making waves abroad.