Superights Brings Personalized Service to Producers

Superights’s deputy managing director of international sales and acquisitions, Morgann Favennec, speaks with TV Kids about the benefits of being a flexible, independent company in today’s crowded kids’ market.

Paris-based Superights first entered the content business in May 2013, when it was founded by French companies Axone Invest and Superprod. Morgann Favennec, the company’s deputy managing director of international sales and acquisitions, says, “We felt there was still room for a new company as long as we had a clear positioning, and we decided to focus on programming for kids’ and family.” She adds: “Since there are major players out there, the idea was to come up with a different offer, not in terms of programming, but in terms of collaboration.” Favennec explains that for producers that don’t have their own distribution arm and are looking for a distributor to represent them, “the big companies may not take care of you as well as a new, small, independent and flexible structure like ours.”

“That’s what most of the producers we’ve been working with like—the fact that it’s only two of us, reachable at any time, and we adapt ourselves to their needs,” Favennec continues. “Every program is [treated] as the most important one on the planet because that’s the project of their life. I think they feel that we are 100 percent dedicated to them and the idea is to work hand-in-hand [with producers] so we can build that relationship and represent their best interest. That’s what we’ve been doing for the past two years, and slowly but surely we’ve been building a pretty nice catalogue.”

Favennec’s past experience as a broadcaster benefits her clients because, she says, “They know that I speak their language, and they know that I will be very honest. If they have a doubt or a question, they will have a very honest response from somebody who was on their side of the table.”

She adds: “I like to think that there is a general coherence [to our catalogue], and hopefully that coherence also includes happy producers.”

At present, the company’s catalogue is comprised of kids’ and family content, including series and feature films, ranging from shorts to 90-minute offerings. “We have all genres, all techniques, and we cover all demographics, from lower preschool to 12 and family, but we don’t do adult or anything that is not kid- and family-oriented,” Favennec explains. Since Superights’s catalogue offers a diverse selection of kids’ content, the executive notes, “Everybody can find something of interest, and the idea is to keep it that way. That’s something we’ve been working hard on.”

Superights’s catalogue offers titles that are based on proven brands as well as original ideas. The 52×2-minute sitcom Will centers on an energetic and Imagedynamic young boy who doesn’t let the fact that he’s in a wheelchair stop him from having adventures with his family and friends. Despite the potential challenges of placing two-minute programs, Favennec reports that Will has drawn interest in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and beyond. Additionally, Superights represents the preschool series Wubby School, about the only school for toys, which has been presold to Discovery Kids Latin America. The company is also preselling The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales, and additional titles in the catalogue include the animated comedies Boyster and Space Dog.

In the coming years, Favennec says the goal is to continue “expanding the catalogue, to keep on integrating things that are different and distinct from one another. We want to keep the company small and flexible because Imagethat’s what our partners like about us. They have a tailor-made service, and we want to keep it like that.”

As for growing the catalogue, Favennec notes: “I would love to integrate some documentaries and live-action series, but they have to be the right ones, they have to fit in. I don’t want to integrate a program just to say I have it. This is not our strategy.”

“Hopefully 2016 will be the consolidation of the effort we’ve been putting in for the last few months,” Favennec says. “We will have a lot of new challenges.”