Andy Heyward

World Screen Weekly, October 18, 2007

Chairman and CEO

DIC Entertainment

Throughout his career, Andy Heyward’s main goal has always been to provide children with quality programming based on good storytelling. He started as a writer and story editor at Hanna-Barbera, then joined DIC Audiovisual and eventually led a management buyout of the company. He has overseen the production of dozens of series that have entertained children across the globe, from Inspector Gadget, Strawberry Shortcake, Madeline and Sabrina the Teenage Witch to Trollz and Horseland.

While always remaining loyal to his commitment to good storytelling, Heyward, the chairman and CEO of DIC Entertainment, has navigated his company through the changing media landscape. Today DIC does much more than produce and distribute shows—it defines itself as a global brand-management company.

In fact, DIC’s businesses break down into four main areas: content, distribution, interactive, and licensing and merchandising. In the content area, this year DIC has rolled out two new brands, Dino Squad, an original series from DIC, and Sushi Pack, an original co-production with American Greetings. DIC has also partnered with the financier Warren Buffett to produce and distribute a direct-to-DVD animated series for kids, The Secret Millionaire’s Club, which will debut in 2008.

Heyward is quite excited about Dino Squad. “I have huge hopes for this show,” he says. “It is one of the properties that has the potential to pop like a Power Rangers or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It is so resonant, it has transformation and empowerment; it has dinosaurs, which are so heroic and there are no branded dinosaurs in the marketplace until 2010 when Jurassic Park 4 comes out.”

DIC has considerably boosted its distribution business in the last couple of years. It not only licenses its programs to broadcasters around the world, it also provides, along with American Greetings Properties, programming to the CBS Saturday morning block KEWLopolis. Originally airing as KOL’s Secret Slumber Party on CBS, which targeted mainly young girls, the block has been tweaked to reach a broader audience. “We put in a couple of boy shows and a couple of shows that have brand equity to them, such as Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake and the ratings are up,” says Heyward.

DIC also programs the DIC Kids Network in the U.S. and recently took a 33-percent stake in KidsCo, a new children’s channel owned by Corus Entertainment’s Nelvana Enterprises and Sparrowhawk Media (which was recently acquired by NBC Universal). As a shareholder in KidsCo, DIC will be providing programming as well as scheduling and promotion expertise. KidsCo launched across Central and Eastern Europe last month, and as Heyward explains, will roll out in Southeast Asia and Latin America in the coming months.

As a main player in the children’s business, but also as a parent, Heyward knows how important new media have become in youngsters’ lives. Consequently, every property that DIC launches must have a life on various platforms beyond television, including the Internet and mobile phones. DIC has launched 13 different websites under kewlopolis.com that offer youngsters entertainment, community and social networking, as well as DIC content they can use to make their own videos.

“Kids today have grown up in a world where this is normal,” says Heyward. “There is no kid who distinguishes between old media and new media. They don’t think the television is old media and the computer is new media, or radio is old media and the cell phone is new media. Kids multitask. They come home from school, they turn on the TV and the computer, they start the blogging and they’ve got their cell phones and their iPods. They’re doing all these different things at the same time and that’s normal for them. We have a very facile constituency that is the earliest of early adopters of new technology, so we have to be mindful of that in everything we do.”

The other factor driving DIC’s multiplatform approach is that in today’s multimedia environment, television alone is not enough to support a property. “If you look at our world, it’s so fragmented and so cannibalized, ratings are so insignificant today compared to what they were when there were only three networks on TV. How do you launch anything nowadays? How do you plant a new property in this new culture? You’ve got to come from every different direction—you’ve got to be on the computer, on the cell phone and all the new devices as well as television. And also you have to have a very robust licensing program.”

And speaking of licensing and merchandising, DIC has been quite aggressive in that area as well. In 2006, it acquired Copyright Promotions (CPLG), a pan-European licensing agency that represents the licensing rights of a broad portfolio of brands including Shrek, The Simpsons, Spider-Man, Star Trek, Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears. DIC’s licensing division grosses $100 million a year.

As challenging as this multimedia world is, Heyward finds it very exciting. He remains dedicated to his mission of providing kids with quality storytelling. As he points out, he’s only had two jobs his entire career, both in the children’s television business, and adds, “I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

—By Anna Carugati