Granada Ventures Inks New Deals for Bella Sara, Britannia High

LONDON, June 11: Granada
Ventures has scored a raft of global licensing and representation deals for its
girl-skewing brand Bella Sara,
and has secured the licensing rights for Britannia High, a family-targeted musical drama from ITV
Productions and Globe Productions.

Several agents have been
tapped to represent Bella Sara
throughout Europe, including Telescreen, which will represent the rights to the
brand in the Benelux region, and Active Merchandising, which will represent
rights in Germany and German-speaking Austria and Switzerland. In addition,
Blowfish will represent the rights to the brand in South Africa. These agents
will actively seek and appoint third-party licensees across multiple categories
within their territories.

Granada Ventures has also
acquired the Scandinavian rights for Bella Sara from the creators, Concept Cards, which sees the
company hold complete worldwide rights for the brand.

Granada Ventures has also signed
a deal in the U.K. with Amscan for EMEA rights (excluding Scandinavia), which
will see the party goods licensee produce a range of Bella Sara-branded balloons and party products. Danilo, a
British licensed calendar and greetings card company, has also come on board as
a licensee for the property, with plans to produce a range of branded cards,
calendars and giftwrap. Danilo will represent Bella Sara in the U.K. and Ireland.

Granada Ventures US has
recently inked a deal with Cadaco to launch a range of Thumb Drive Bella
Sara games next year.
International deals are already in place for Bella Sara with HarperCollins, Sababa Toys and Codemasters.

Targeted at 5- to
12-year-old girls, Bella Sara has sold more than 50 million trading cards worldwide since
the series debuted in 2007. Each Bella
Sara card features a fairytale-like
illustration of a horse along with a positive message for girls, such as
“Beauty comes from within” or “Be the hero in your own story.” A unique code on
every card activates a virtual horse that can be cared for in the Bella Sara online portal, which has amassed more than 2.5 million
registered users from 240 countries.

Paula Miller, the VP of
licensing at Granada Ventures US, said: “It’s thrilling to see that Bella
Sara strikes a chord globally and
exciting times are ahead of us as we work with some of the best manufacturers
in their respective categories to bring exceptional products to market for
2009. Our cornerstone partners—Harper-Collins, Codemasters and Sababa—are
absolutely passionate about the property and that passion is evident in the
products we have seen to date, expected to hit retail shelves in Q4.”

Under its deal for Britannia
High, Granada Ventures holds the
licensing rights to a range of consumer products for the series, including
publishing for all retail channels. Meanwhile, the company’s home-entertainment
division, ITV DVD, will handle the U.K. DVD rights.

Britannia High will feature a group of young performers who sing,
dance and act in a fictional British performing arts school. Through a
combination of documentary and drama, Britannia High will take viewers on a journey from the first
real-life casting process through to an eight-part scripted drama series,
concluding with a live episode. Each episode will include original musical
numbers performed by the cast, composed by Gary Barlow of the music group Take
That and his team of songwriters. Before the drama airs, there will be two
specially filmed one-hour documentaries providing a behind-the-scenes look at
how the drama is put together.

Granada Ventures will
appoint licensees for Britannia High for categories such as toys and games, new-media gaming, publishing, apparel
and accessories, among others.

Mel Beer, the head of
licensing at Granada Ventures, said: "With story lines that everyone can
relate to, we expect Britannia High
to become an instant success and believe consumer products demand (from girls
10-plus in particular) to be immense. We're already in discussions with
interested toy and publishing partners to produce a range of musical toys and
books for Q1 2009.”

—By Irene Lew