A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM DISNEY JUNIOR

Cynopsis: Kids!
04/19/12

Good morning. It’s Thursday, April 19, 2012, and this your first early morning briefing.

Oregon-based animation studio Laika (Coraline and the upcoming 3D stop-motion movie ParaNorman) options the feature film rights to Goblins, the new Scholastic fantasy novel by noted author Philip Reeve (Mortal Engines) that was published earlier this month in the UK — and set for publication in the US in fall 2013. Laika has also signed director Mark Gustafson (The PJs, Animation Director on The Fantastic Mr. Fox) to direct the 3D, stop-motion animated film of the Goblins. Set in a world of monsters and magical creatures, Goblins tells the story of riotous, ill-mannered, and all-around bloodthirsty goblins who live in the ruins of Clovenstone Castle, and spend their time mindlessly fighting and menacing neighboring villages. Only the young Skarper understands that an ancient and powerful magic created by a vanquished sorcerer is rising again – sending giants, cloudmaidens, swamp monsters, treewarriors, rampaging goblins and unfortunate humans will be swept into a magical conflict that will determine the fate of their world.

Cartoon Network expands its TV Everywhere strategy by announcing at its LA ad sales upfront yesterday that it will soon begin streaming its on-air content live across multiple platforms, including online at CartoonNetwork.com and for mobile viewers on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

LICENSING

4Kids Entertainment International inks a deal to represent the new 2D animated action adventure TV series Beastkeeper (52×13). Under its deal, 4Kids Entertainment will represent property in the toy and gaming categories worldwide, along with all other licensing and merchandising categories for the UK and Ireland. Targeted to boys 6-10 years old, Beastkeeper is co-produced by Starbright, Mondo TV, Ponpoko Productions and Kappa Edizione. Beastkeeper TV deals will be announced shortly across multiple territories for a 2013 launch. The series revolves around Keep, a boy with no memory, but who has in his possession an ancient and magic artifact that gives him the power to control the Beasts, legendary creatures hidden in every corner of the world, and obtain their power and combine with them. Together, Keep and four friends set out to uncover his true identity, while also solving other puzzles and mysteries along the way.

Lawless Entertainment is tapped to represent animation, licensing, merchandising and publishing for The Little Prince property in the US and Canada. A novella, The Little Prince was written by author/poet/aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery and first published in 1943. Lawless Entertainment will introduce the various categories of licensed merchandise to the North American marketplace based upon the classic The Little Prince brand and animated series, as well as seeking retail partnerships with various department/specialty chains.

Kids Preferred, a manufacturer toys and gifts, releases a new collection of The World of Eric Carle toys, which are designed to encourage babies and toddlers to explore the world around them through Carle’s world of color and texture. The new The World of Eric Carle products feature Carle’s various characters and array of beautiful colors, and includes toys with rattle and crinkle sounds, music, pull-down bodies (that bounce back up) and jiggles, nesting blocks, a teething toy, and playmat. The World of Eric Carle is represented by licensing agent The Joester Loria Group.

MORE KIDS STUFF

Olympusat, a developer and distributer of independent Hispanic, specialty, and faith and family TV networks, enters into a content partnership with Canadian kid and family-centric Cookie Jar Entertainment, to expand business in the US and in Latin America, including carrying Cookie Jar’s Spanish-language programming content on Sorpresa, Olympusat’s 24-hour Spanish-language kid-targeted network available in the US and Puerto Rico. Under the deal, Olympusat will have access to Cookie Jar’s library of 6,000+ titles, including series such as The Busy World of Richard Scarry and Mary Kate and Ashley: In Action, which along with other titles are dubbed in Spanish. Additionally, as part of both of their broader strategic plans, Olympusat’s will eventually feature Cookie Jar’s programming on other channels, the details of which will be announced later. Sorpresa currently reaches 1.5 million cable subscribers in the US and Puerto Rico.

Nickelodeon will celebrates Earth Day this weekend with environmentally friendly-centric programming beginning tomorrow, Friday, April 20, at 9a. The weekend features new episodes of Nick’s preschool series including Max & Ruby, Franklin and Friends, Fresh Beat Band, and a never-before-seen episode of The Penguins of Madagascar. The network will also air green-themed episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants, iCarly and Big Time Rush. Additionally, Nickelodeon will also air a series of The Big Help branded spots featuring Victoria Justice and Leon Thomas III (Victorious), which will offer kids tips on everyday things they can do around their homes and in their communities to improve the environment. On Earth Day, Sunday, April 22, Nickelodeon will run a series of interstitials titled Big Help Shout Outs, which celebrate the work of students in schools across the country that are working with Nickelodeon’s The Big Help partner, National Wildlife Federation, on various eco-friendly projects. Nick.com will also go green with eco-themed games, with Kung Fu Panda: Tales of Po will feature a special Earth Day related tale called A Thing for Bling. The site will also feature two new SpongeBob games, SpongeBob SquarePants: Spring Cleaning and SpongeBob SquarePants: Spring it On!

Also marking Earth Day, Nicktoons will feature a three-hour marathon of its animated series Voltron Force marathon starting Saturday, April 21, at 3p. The following day, Sunday, April 22, Nicktoons will feature a Dragon Ball GT mini-marathon from 3p.

The Hub will celebrate National Pet Month with a special 2.5 hour marathon of its original animated series Pound Puppies, Sunday, April 29, 7-9:30a. Pound Puppies features the voices of Eric McCormack, Alanna Ubach, Michael Rapaport, John DiMaggio and Yvette Nicole Brown, as well as Betty White in a recurring role. Pound Puppies airs regularly Saturdays at 2 p on The Hub.

ZDF Enterprises (ZDFE) has taken up responsibility for the worldwide distribution of the license and merchandising rights of Germany’s kid-targeted TV channel KiKA. Under their agreement, ZDFE is handling the marketing activities of the joint kid’s channel of ARD and ZDF, KiKA, which is now 15 years old. Among the KiKA brands that ZDFE will now manage the marketing for include KiKA program brands such as Baumhaus, Bernd das Brot, Beutolomaus, Ene Mene Bu, KIKA Live, LiLA, Tanzalarm!, and Trickboxx, among others (excluding KiKAninchen).

Dover Publications and Sesame Workshop partner to publish the new book Sesame Street Simple Science Experiments with Elmo and Friends: Water and Earth, which supports Sesame Street’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) curriculum. Targeted to kids 3+ and set for release this month, the book features playful illustrations, information and simple step-by-step at home science experiments (table-top volcano, indoor rainstorm, bubbles), as well as Murray’s Science Words on the Street sidebars, fun facts from Grover, a science journal with blank pages for results, mazes, and look-and-find puzzles, among other things. The book is written by Gina Gold, author of 40+ kid’s titles for Sesame Street, Dragon Tales, among others, and features illustrations by Sesame Street artist Tom Brannon. For the last several years Dover Publications has published a line of kid’s books featuring Sesame Street characters helping teach counting, letters, and also offering activities that encourage creative play.

STONE SOUP

Bestseller Children’s Picture Books (top 10), Week of April 16, 2012: Title; Author (Publisher)
Duckling Gets a Cookie!?; Mo Willems/author and illustrator (Hyperion Books)
Max’s Easter Surprise; Rosemary Wells/author (Grosset & Dunlap)
Where Are Baby’s Easter Eggs?; Karen Katz/author and illustrator (Little Simon)
Fancy Nancy’s Elegant Easter; Jane O’Connor/author, Robin Preiss Glasser/illustrator (Harperfestival)
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick; Lucille Colandro/author, Jared Lee/illustrator (Cartwheel)
Splat the Cat: Where’s the Easter Bunny?; Rob Scotton/author (HarperCollins)
The Easter Egg; Jan Brett/author and illustrator (Putnam)
Happy Easter, Mouse!; Laura Joffe Numeroff/author, Felicia Bond/illustrator (Balzer & Bray/Harperteen)
Heaven Is for Real for Kids; Todd Burpo, Sonja Burpo, and Colton Burpo/authors, Wilson Ong/illustrator (Tommy Nelson)
Duck & Goose, Here Comes the Easter Bunny!; Tad Hills/author and illustrator (Schwartz & Wade Books)
Compiled from data received from independent and chain bookstores.
Source: Publishers Weekly

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Sesame Workshop appoints the inimitable Tom Ascheim to the newly created position of Chief Strategy Officer and EVP/Sesame Learning. In overseeing the Corporate Business Development group, Ascheim looks for growth opportunities for the Workshop, and to integrate and align all its business strategies, as well as overseeing the Sesame Learning group. Ascheim has spent more than twenty-five years in the media and technology world. A 25-year media and technology industry veteran, most recently, Ascheim was the CEO of Newsweek. He previously ran Nickelodeon’s TV group, overseeing Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Nick Jr., Noggin (now Nick Jr. channel), Nicktoons and The N (TeenNick). Prior to that, Ascheim developed and lead Nickelodeon’s digital networks group. Congrats to you Tom!

Following its annual general meeting yesterday in Luxemburg, RTL Group’s newly composed Board of Directors appointed Thomas Rabe as its new Chairman. Guillaume de Posch and Anke Schaferkordt were also officially named new Co-CEOs of RTL Group. Rabe, Chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann, which owns a majority of RTL Group, succeeds Siegfried Luther who had served as the RTL Group Board of Directors since 2000 and as its Chairman since 2004 and considered a ‘founding father’ of the company. Additionally, named to the RTL Board of Directors are: Elmar Heggen  RTL Group CFO and Head of the Corporate Centre in Luxembourg; de Posch and Schaferkordt as Executive Directors; and Bernd Kundrun and Rolf Schmidt-Holtz as Non-Executive Directors. Schaferkordt will officially join the Executive Board of Bertelsmann this week. Furthermore, both Schaferkordt and de Posch are also members of the Group Management Committee (GMC) of Bertelsmann.

RATINGS

Live + Same Day Ratings Kids Cable Network Averages (000) for Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 6am-11pm, ranked by K2-11:
DISNEY CHANNEL:       K2-11 792; K6-11 453; TWEENS 9-14 359
NICKELODEON:            K2-11 688; K6-11 256; TWEENS 9-14 200
CARTOON NETWORK:    K2-11 506; K6-11 314; TWEENS 9-14 211
DISNEY XD:                 K2-11 143; K6-11 110; TWEENS 9-14 102
NICKTOONS:              K2-11   65; K6-11   36; TWEENS 9-14   29
Source: MTVN Research from Nielsen Media Research Data

Answer to Our Last Trivia Question: Who was Penrod “Penry” Pooch better known as? Hong Kong Phooey. Kudos to: Keith Manzella-Eastwest, MG/NY; Bob Friedland-Toys”R”Us, Inc./NY; Tom Boyd-WGN-TV/Chicago; Derek Bartholomaus-Profiles TV/El Segundo; Brett Ashy-The Ashy Agency/LA.

Today’s Trivia Question: Who designed the opening sequence to I Love Lucy? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: Only the second four correct answers from each time zone will be mentioned; and once you’ve been mentioned in any of the Cynopsis editions, you can’t be mentioned again that calendar week.)

Later — Gwen
Gwen Billings for Cynopsis Kids!
04.19.12

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