Classic Media Notches Up Sales

LONDON: The Classic Media (formerly Entertainment Rights) properties Guess with Jess, Postman Pat and Casper’s Scare School are set for broadcast across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia through a new round of deals.

Guess with Jess, a co-production with Nelvana that is set to air on CBeebies in the U.K. this fall, has seen further broadcasters sign on recently, including MNET (South Africa), MBC (the Middle East), Al Jazeera (the Middle East), PT Unggul Cipta Piranti (Indonesia), Rose Media (Thailand), True Visions (Thailand), RTE (Ireland) and RTB (Brunei). Targeting a preschool audience, the series follows Jess the Cat and his farmyard friends as they explore and question the world around them.

The new Postman Pat series Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service—SDS has been sold in 80-plus territories worldwide. New agreements have been closed with Saregama (India), TVNZ (New Zealand), MPB Primedia (Phillipines), PT Ardya Insani (Indonesia), Big Picture (Spain), NRK (Norway), Doordarshan (India), YLE (Finland), RTE (Ireland), Europa Records (Hungary), BBC (Poland), Bontonfilm (Czech Republic) and ORF (Austria). The show features the beloved postman promoted to head of the Special Delivery Service in the bustling market town of Pencaster.

The CGI-animated Casper’s Scare School, a co-production with MoonScoop and DQ Entertainment that is currently in production for TF1 (France) and Cartoon Network (Europe), has more than 60 markets on board. New broadcast partners are RTM 1&2 (Malaysia), MTV3 (Finland), Danmarks Radio (Denmark), ABC (Australia), Luis Foes (Angola) and True Visions (Thailand). The Casper’s Scare School movie was recently acquired by Playarte (Brazil), Buena Vista and SIC (Portugal). The comedy pits Casper and his misfit friends against a scare-hungry gang of ghouls at boarding school.

Chloe Van den Berg, the executive director of international for Classic Media, commented: “We are delighted to announce a raft of major deals that have been secured with premium broadcast partners in key territories over the last few months, including those deals wrapped up in Cannes, emphasizing the on-going global appeal of Classic Media’s ever popular brands.”

Classic Media expects to make a further announcement regarding Tinga Tinga Tales broadcast deals in the coming weeks.