ITV

Tag: Warner Brothers

  • 4Kids Entertainment introduces ‘Viva Piñata’ at Mipcom 2006

    4Kids Entertainment introduces ‘Viva Piñata’ at Mipcom 2006

    MUMBAI: 4Kids Entertainment, Inc., has set Mipcom 2006 for the launch of the international sales efforts for its new 3D CGI animated television series Viva Piñata. 4Kids Entertainment executive VP International Brian Lacey announced that the 26 half-hour episodes in the series will be available to international buyers at this year’s market.

    “Viva Piñata will bring a fresh comedic appeal to kids with its witty writing, clever dialogue and colorful cast of characters,” said Lacey. “The series, which has stunning 3D CGI animation, will provide broadcasters with excellent scheduling flexibility, whether it’s broadcast as 26 half-hours or 52 eleven-minute cartoons. We’re also confident that because the show appeals to both boys and girls equally, it is a very advertiser friendly opportunity for broadcasters around the world.”

    4Kids has exclusive rights to represent Viva Piñata worldwide across broadcast, home video, music and merchandise licensing, informs an official release. According to Lacey, the animated kids television series is already set to premiere this fall on 4Kids TV in the US and Canada’s YTV.

    In Viva Piñata, viewers are introduced a cast of piñata “friends” who embark on wild adventures with mysteries to solve and parties to be had on Piñata Island. The ensemble cast of outrageous characters include the classic superstar Hudson Horstachio, the ever-nervous Fergy Fudgehog, the keenly observant Paulie Pretztail, and the practically perfect Franklin Fizzlybear — with more piñatas being discovered all the time, adds the release.

    4Kids Entertainment, provides high quality children television entertainment. Over the past decade, 4Kids has produced and launched such as Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles among others.

    4Kids has selected Bardel Entertainment, a Vancouver-based animation company, to execute the 3D CGI animation in hi-def format. With over 15 years experience in animation, Bardel Entertainment’s clients include Dreamworks SKG, Warner Brothers, Fox, Nelvana and Disney Interactive among others.

  • Zee brings English fare to viewers

    Zee brings English fare to viewers

    Zee Telefilms’ is set to enter the English movies and English general entertainment segment with its two channels Zee Movies and Zee English which are slated for launch on 15 March, 2000. Both the channels are to be encrypted and will be beamed from AsiaSat-3. “Television for the dot com generation” is the slugline for the two channels.

    The channels are expected to cater the Category “A” audience and claim to have a huge library of popular movies and other software. Zee English which is the general entertainment channel claims to have rights of popular serials like “Friends” and “The Benny Hill Show”. The channel boasts to have the last four year programming of the most popular serial in the US “Friends” while competing channel Star World has only the earlier three years of the popular sitcom.

    Zee Movies has acquired around 700 titles of English films from various houses like CBS, Warner Brothers, Pearsons, Carlton, Freemantle, Diskovery and Passport International. It would telecast five new movies everyday which would then be repeated.

    HBO, which undoubtedly is among the biggest cable movie channels in the world, will enter the Indian skies soon and could be a threat to Zee Movies. It already has drawn a huge line-up of popular Hollywood movies and would begin its test runs from 15 March, 2000 and is slated to be officially launch on 22 March.

    Zee Telefilms apparently has fixed the rates for Zee Movies and Zee English at Rs 5 and Rs 4 per subscriber. HBO’s sticker price is Rs 5.45. The network is slated to price its set-top boxes at around Rs 12,500 each which is way below that of the competing HBO which will price its boxes above Rs 25,000. This is likely to work in favour of Zee Movies in Indian cable TV homes. Zee would stand at an advantage due to the strong distribution network of SitiCable.

    Zee English and Zee Movies are expected to fill in the vacant space in the Zee Telefilms’ bouquet which lacked English programming.