Bill Schultz

TV Kids
Weekly, March 11, 2008

Executive
Producer, Co-CEO and Partner, Mike Young Productions & Taffy Entertainment

CEO, Kabillion

In a kids’
channel business increasingly dominated by the studio-owned powerhouses Disney
Channel, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, launching a new service can be
somewhat of a daunting task. The challenges, however, didn’t stop Taffy
Entertainment, part of the MoonScoop Group, from entering the market last year
with Kabillion.

The
multiplatform service includes a free online broadband site and a VOD service
reaching almost 15 million homes, featuring a range of properties from the
Taffy library as well as third-party acquisitions. Driving the rollout of the
service is Bill Schultz, the CEO of Kabillion who also serves as an executive
producer, co-CEO and partner of Mike Young Productions and Taffy Entertainment.
Schultz is optimistic about Kabillion’s growth prospects, but realistic about
the challenges ahead. “We refer to [Disney, Nick, Cartoon Network] as the
triopoly,” he quips. “In the U.S. I would imagine that on any given weekday or
Saturday or Sunday, the triopoly has got to account for 80 percent of the
audience.”

Schultz
explains that with Kabillion, the key is not competing with the big guns of the
kids’ channel space. “We are an alternative. The audience is so plastic, they
can stretch and change and move, the viewing habits are changing constantly. We’re
seeing growth every day. Every month is a little better than the previous
month, both in terms of the VOD and the online. Every quarter is up. The
numbers are still small, but at the same time, the fact that we’re achieving
that type of growth in a very saturated, competitive market” proves that there
is still room for competition, he notes.

Programming
wise, Kabillion draws many of its offerings from the Taffy catalogue, including
Bobby’s World, I
Got a Rocket! and Pet
Alien. Schultz notes,
however, that Kabillion does not intend to be the exclusive home for the Taffy
library. “You have to do what’s right for the property. Taffy is first and
foremost a producer and we have partners on a lot of our shows. There’s no way
that anybody would turn down the opportunity to put a $10-million, 26 half-hour
series on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network or Disney. Getting the show out to the
most number of people, that’s goal number one. I’m an evangelist for the notion
of non-exclusivity. Exclusivity is an old concept. Kids don't care about it.
Kids are more and more channel agnostic. They’re probably not platform
agnostic, but they can walk to their TiVo and know which show they want to
watch. They can go to their computer and get the shows they want to watch.”

Ensuring the
widest reach possible for a series is also crucial for a successful
merchandising and licensing strategy. “What drives the animation business is
the ability to exploit the property at the ancillary level,” Schultz says. “The
question that’s on everybody’s mind is, if I put my show on a platform, will I
be able to get licensees, will I be able to get product into retail, will I be
able to drive sales? That’s the business model.”

As such,
driving further distribution of Kabillion in the U.S. is a priority for
Schultz. With the VOD platform already on Comcast, Schultz is looking to score
a deal with Time Warner Cable and is exploring opportunities with other
broadband partners. International expansion is also on the planner. “We are
putting together a platform for IPTV and broadband in France. The model is to
take the brand and expand it opportunistically on as many platforms as we can.
We had an opportunity to launch a block in Spain, but we decided to go with the
Taffy brand. We are in negotiations with a company in Europe to do a
Kabillion-branded, Netherlands-based version on cable, VOD, IPTV, mobile and
broadband.”

—By
Mansha Daswani