Cartoon Network’s Arnesen

April 2007

Thanks to its slightly
irreverent sense of humor and diverse animation styles, Cartoon Network Europe
has established itself as an entertainment destination for children in more
than a dozen countries across Europe. Since its launch in 1993, the channel has
been taking the best programming from Cartoon Network in the U.S. and has also
been co-producing series with international partners. Last year, channel management decided to set up a
development-and-production arm in London, and Finn Arnesen, the senior VP of
original series and international development for Cartoon Network, is heading
up that unit. Arnesen will oversee production in Europe, while sitting on
Cartoon Network’s development team in the U.S. He also acts as a liason with
the heads of Cartoon Network’s Asian and Latin American channels. With his
unique global vantage point he is building Cartoon Network’s roster of
properties, making sure that they reach whatever platform or device children are
using.

TV KIDS: What
motivated the decision to create the original-productions unit?

ARNESEN: Cartoon
Network started in the U.S. in 1992, and launched here in Europe in 1993,
having acquired the Hanna-Barbera library and the WB and MGM theatrical libraries.
Original production started in the States in 1995, first with shorts and then
with full-length series. We were having success with the original shows from
the U.S.A. and we wanted to re-create that and make hit shows from outside of
the U.S.A. too. It was an evolutionary process, which started with local
acquisitions and then progressed to international co-productions. In the U.K.
we’ve put our programming on the map with the European co-productions the Cramp
Twins and Robotboy, and
a CGI Aardman ­co-production, Chop Socky Chooks, that
is due to air on Cartoon Network.
Additionally, in 2006 we made our first entirely U.K. in-house-produced show at
the network, Skatoony, which
mixes animation and live-action, with a second series currently under way.

The Cartoon Network Europe
Development Studio opened in London in the first quarter of 2007 and is the
result of significant investment from the company, which will allow us to start
producing wholly owned properties. With our track record of successful
programming, successful acquisition and successful co-production, we’re now
taking the next step to fully finance our own shows from here.

TV KIDS: Are
you looking to have a certain number of projects in development at any given
time?

ARNESEN: There
is a three-year plan in place for the development studio, and within that time,
we’re aiming to greenlight a minimum of three or four series. We already have
some great projects in the pipeline, and it is likely one of these will be
greenlit soon. I also want to point out that we are still going to co-produce
and we’re always open to ideas. We will therefore continue to work with third
parties if we feel it’s the right property. The studio is an exciting
development for the industry and shows Cartoon Network’s commitment to the
future of U.K. kids’ programming.

TV KIDS: I
imagine that what comes out of the London studio can be used by other Cartoon
Network channels as they see fit, right?

ARNESEN:
Absolutely, that’s how it works for us now. I’m in a privileged position
whereby I sit on both sides of the Atlantic. I’m involved in the commissioning
process in the U.S. for our global networks and I’m involved in the
commissioning process for our work here in London, which in turn can serve our
global networks. The idea is for these shows to work across the world. You can
never please all of the people all of the time, as Cartoon Network’s audiences
are wide and diverse across the world, but if you put your core audience first,
and make a show that is relevant to most kids across the world, you stand a
fair chance. There will always be markets where a show doesn’t work as well,
but it’s wholly our intention that the shows we greenlight at the studio in
London will work on all our channels across the world.

TV KIDS: Will
the shows produced in London have a somewhat different flavor or style than
what is produced by Cartoon Network in Burbank?

ARNESEN: That’s
an interesting point, because we always say, “Global brand, regional accent,”
but of course, there’s a certain [local] sensibility. What works on our French,
Spanish or Italian networks, for example, doesn’t always work on our U.S. or
U.K. networks. Obviously, if you’ve been raised in the U.K., or Continental
Europe, you’re going to have a different perspective than somebody raised in
L.A. or New York. It sometimes comes through from the people who are pitching
to us and through their own cultural heritage. I always point to the fact that The
Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, The Powerpuff Girls, South Park and The Simpsons work internationally, to name a few. In general,
most kids around the world will laugh at the same things: slapstick humor,
someone falling over, issues relevant to their lives as kids, all things that
are universally funny or important to kids. It’s about good characters and
stories and whether you can keep kids’ attention.

TV KIDS: How
are you attracting talent to the studio in London?

ARNESEN: Daniel
Lennard, the VP of original series and development, is heading up the
development studio and is meeting with exciting design and storyboard talent
from the animation industry, including TV series, features and commercials.
There is a two-tiered approach…. On the one hand, Daniel’s team is searching
for candidates to be a part of the development studio, but they’re also
sourcing talent for when the development projects are greenlit and move forward
into production. In order to stay ahead of the game, they’ve also established
links with the most exciting European animation colleges. Generally speaking, though,
we haven’t needed to do much to attract talent to the studio, because we
initially hired some great development artists and word of mouth spreads
quickly throughout the U.K. animation industry. There’s a genuine curiosity
about what Cartoon Network Europe’s development studio will come up with, and a
desire to be part of whatever that might be.

TV KIDS: How
important are mobile and broadband and other new-media extensions nowadays?

ARNESEN: New
media is fundamental in today’s market. I must admit I was pretty resistant to
the claims of the “Internet revolution” about five years ago that said kids
would come home and watch our cartoons on the PC or on handheld [devices].
However, both technology and kids are now at the right time for it, and to keep
abreast of where we’ll be five years from now, we’re actively embracing a
market that is growing fast. Really it’s about content, and while I still
maintain that TV is not about to be usurped, because it provides a shared
viewing experience, there is a place for all platforms, whether web, broadband,
VOD, mobile or video MP3, to co-exist. Now new media is here for real, and
obviously everyone’s monitoring video-sharing and social-networking sites, and
the impact they have on delivery systems and access to content. All the varying
platforms mean that program rights are also key going forward. Obviously, it’s
about providing a 360-degree solution. If we’re making a show, we’ll look at
putting it on our broadband site, we’ll look to putting it on VOD, we’ll create
a game that our audience can play online, and then we’ll drive them back to the
network. Our properties should always be multiplatform. People are sick of me
saying this, but our mantra is, “Be in every space kids are.” If kids are downloading programming to
a handheld, mobile or MP3, and watching it on the bus to school, we should have
our content there, available to them. So it’s a big part of what we do and it
can only grow.

New media provides an
enhancement to TV programming and it can drive both ways. One of the best
testaments is when people start mashing up your own content, because that means
people want to actually play around with your programming and characters and
they’re paying attention to them. I know the audience for that is older than our
core audience, but it will eventually trickle down to younger kids. So my
attitude towards new media is that it’s an enhancement, it’s there, it’s not a
bolt on. It’s part of the whole process and you have to acknowledge it when
you’re commissioning a show. I believe if you have a great story and character,
then that content or an iteration of that content can exist everywhere and the
licensing and merchandising and all the ancillaries will follow.