Breakthrough Entertainment

September 23, 2009 World Screen

Nat Abraham
Head, Distribution

What are some of your top properties for MIPCOM?

 

Our newest series launching at MIPCOM is Dino Dan. Dino Dan is a live-action adventure series aimed at 4- to 11-year-olds that brings prehistoric dinosaurs to the screen in brilliant CGI-enhanced realism. In each 11-minute episode, 10-year-old Dan Henderson ("Dino Dan") uses his vivid imagination to spin an everyday situation into a dinosaur adventure by imagining photo-realistic prehistoric creatures into his normal life. While Dan is the only one who actually sees the dinosaurs, all of his friends, family and teachers are affected by the presence of dinosaurs in Dan’s life. Dan is a fountain of dinosaur information and can answer almost any dinosaur question and if he can’t, well, that’s just an opportunity for him to put a dinosaur through a dino experiment and figure out the answer. Dino Dan is an adventurous, educational and fun series that will enlighten while it entertains. Our second new and very timely kids preschool series is Fishtronaut. Fishtronaut follows the adventures of a fun-filled ‘investigator’ fish, who, along with his friends Zeek and Marina, finds solutions to environmental dilemmas from the bottom of the sea to the top of a coconut tree! Through audience participation, songs and humor, this entertaining animated series teaches children how important it is to be team players and take initiative in an effort to help them learn to take better care of their world. At MIPCOM we are also launching our second season of Think Big, a very insightful and inspiring series produced in association with TVO Kids in Canada. Think Big follows kid ‘inventors’ and not only encourages them to use their imaginations but also teaches kids how to market themselves in the business world. 

 

 
Why will these programs appeal to buyers?
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Dino Dan: In a fiercely competitive and somewhat cluttered kid’s television market, buyers are looking for “stand out” programming. The uniqueness and freshness of Dino Dan’s visuals and story lines will certainly fill that bill. Using very sophisticated CGI, there are 18 photorealistic dinosaurs that are integral to every episode of the series. From the very same multi-award-winning producers as the hugely successful series This is Daniel Cook, Are We There Yet?, This is Emily Yeung and Roll Play comes Dino Dan. The inspiration for this series came from Daniel Cook himself who was always fascinated with Dinosaurs and had a limitless imagination. Just based on the initial Pilot, TVO in Canada as well as Noggin in the U.S., pre-bought the series. Now it is launching for the rest of the world.

 

 
Fishtronaut: With the increasing emphasis on impressing upon kids the environmental concerns for our planet, this series presents one of the first important efforts to educate children to the impact of their actions and attitudes while being presented in an entertaining way. Since its April 20 premiere on Discovery Kids Latin America and through to its most recent airing last week Fishtronaut has consistently been the number one rated preschool children’s program in the region!
 
What are some of the trends you’re currently seeing in this market?

 

The trends show that household viewing levels are increasing significantly as in these economic times people are staying home watching television. And despite the economic situation there is always a demand for top-quality shows. Today we are in a HD, flat-panel environment, where the quality of the picture, the quality of the sound, the size of the screen, all say that this experience is only going to get better so there is an opportunity for us as a company to come to the market with new breakthrough ideas like Dino Dan.

 

 
What are your goals and expectations MIPCOM?

 

With the worst of the economic crisis hopefully behind us, our expectation is to see buyers having a renewed enthusiasm and strong appetite for acquisitions of strong shows with a view to strengthening their channel brands.