Hugo Rose

World Screen Weekly, September 7, 2006

Hugo Rose

CEO

Televix Entertainment

Long before anime found enthusiastic fans around the world, Hugo Rose had discovered its unique appeal. Rose set up his distribution company, Televix Entertainment, in 1990 and soon after established very good relationships with a number of Japanese companies. “About 14 years ago we started representing a couple of small Japanese shows,” he says. “Our biggest incursion into the anime market was with Pokémon about ten years ago. After that we started developing relationships with most of the Japanese producers and networks, TV Tokyo, TBS, YTV and with international distributors of Japanese product, like 4Kids Entertainment.”

Televix sells primarily to Latin America, the U.S. Hispanic market, Spain and Portugal. When it began representing anime programming, the genre was new and quite different for European and U.S. broadcasters, but it was well known in Latin America. “Latin America had already been exposed to anime since the late 1960s,” says Rose. "So while in the U.S. anime is pretty much a new event, in Latin America it has been a non-stop phenomenon for over 30 years.”

Televix’s best-selling anime titles have included, of course, Pokémon , but also Yu-Gi-Oh!, Inuyasha and Shaman King. And from Rose’s perspective, anime continues to be a strong genre. “There has been a lot of talk that anime is on the decline but I don’t think that is the case,” he says. “I think the public has become more sophisticated. They select what they want to see and therefore only want high-end anime shows as opposed to six or seven years ago when they would watch pretty much everything or rent whatever was out in the video stores. But I don’t think anime’s on decline. To the contrary, the bigger shows are doing better than ever."

Two new anime shows that Televix will be bringing to MIPCOM are Blackjack and Idatenjump. Blackjack, from YTV in Japan, is aimed at 14-year-olds and up, and tells the story of a young boy whose bright future is ripped away in a horrible accident. Left orphaned and disfigured, the boy vows to become a surgeon and follow in the footsteps of the kind doctor who did not give up on him.

Idatenjump targets a younger audience, 6- to 12-year-olds. It centers on a schoolboy, Sho, who has a passion for mountain-bike racing. After entering a special race, Sho and his friends are swallowed by a dark mist known as the X-Zone. The only way they can free themselves and get home is by collecting ten emblems, which are awarded to the winners of the race. Idatenjump will premiere in the U.S. this fall.

Televix has offices in Los Angeles and in Puerto Rico, and representatives in Colombia, Brazil and Spain. The company generates some 80 percent of its revenue from Latin America, 10 percent from Spain and 10 percent from the U.S. Hispanic market.