Entertainment Rights Secures New International Sales for Rupert Bear

LONDON, April 11: Entertainment Rights has secured a raft of new broadcast and home entertainment deals for its preschool series Rupert Bear—Follow the Magic, which has now been licensed into over 65 territories since its launch at MIPCOM 2005.

The series has recently been licensed for broadcast to France 5, Super RTL in Germany and Kidz Entertainment for Scandinavia. In Europe, other broadcasters that have acquired the series include Ireland’s RTE, Portugal’s RTP, Slovenia’s Pop TV, Icelandic National, Poland’s Canal and Cyfrowy, and Modern Times in Greece. In Asia, the series has been acquired by Hong Kong’s ATV, Thailand’s Cineplex, Singapore’s Mediacorp TV12, Afghanistan’s Telecom Development, India’s Turner Entertainment, Taiwan’s Astar Media Production and Indonesia’s Indosiar Visual.

Home entertainment agreements for Rupert Bear—Follow the Magic include Genius Products for the U.S. and Canada; Cass Film for Poland; Lusomundo Audiovis for Portugal; Modern Times SA in Greece; HVN Video for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei; Astar Media Production for Taiwan; CITEL for France; Nu Metro Entertainment South Africa; and Tiflon Iletisim Siste for Turkey. Viva Entertainment has also acquired home entertainment rights for the Middle East.

Jane Smith, the chief commercial and creative director of Entertainment Rights, commented: “We are delighted to have secured agreements for the Rupert Bear brand with leading broadcast and home entertainment partners around the world. These deals demonstrate the immense appetite for Rupert internationally and the global appeal of the Rupert Bear brand. Rupert is part of ER’s varied and extensive library of programming which offers our international partners a huge choice of quality children’s and family programming, characters and brands.”