Icon Animation Secures Pre-MIPTV Sales for Lola & Virginia

BARCELONA, April 10: Spain’s Icon Animation has secured new
sales on its girl-skewing animated series Lola & Virginia with broadcasters in Brazil, Romania, Russia and
Ireland.

In Brazil, the free-TV channel SBT has acquired the series,
along with a licensing and merchandising deal in the region with agent Creative
Licensing. In Romania, the series has also been licensed to broadcaster Kanal
D. MUZ TV acquired the free-TV rights for Russia. Ireland’s
TG4 has taken the show in a deal with Millimages, which shares distribution
with Icon Animation.

In addition, the series has previously been licensed to Nickelodeon in
France and Asia, Disney Channel in Spain and in Italy, Canal Panda in Portugal,
The Children Channel in Israel and RCTV in Venezuela. Icon Animation holds all
distribution rights worldwide except for France, French-speaking Switzerland,
Benelux, the U.K., Ireland, Iceland, Australia and New Zealand, which are held
by Millimages.

The series is also supported by a licensing and merchandising strategy that
includes a deal with Comercial Nim for Spain and
Portugal. Products rolling out from the deal
include school sets, stationery, backpacks, pencil cases, with further product
lines planned by Comercial Nim in conjunction with Mendía Marketing, which will
include games, T-shirts, beach sets and toiletries. Grupo Edebe has already
launched 10 manga-style comic books in Spain and mobile content producer
Alvento is distributing ring tones, games, images, screen savers and a WAP
Portal for the brand.

Lola & Virginia premiered in the U.S. last June and on
Nickelodeon Latin America last July. It is set to launch on France 3 and RTVE
this year following other public broadcasters
that have aired the series, including TV3, ETB and RTP.

A co-production between Icon Animation, Millimages, France 3, TV Catalunya
and ETB, the series is targeted at 6-12 year-olds and is about Lola, who
considers herself the local princess until Virginia, a stuck-up girl, barges
into her life. The series is based on the
original concept created by Myriam Ballesteros, a founding partner of Icon
Animation with Sergi Reitg.

Christophe Goldberger, the head of
distribution and marketing at Icon Animation, commented: “Lola & Virginia is
proving popular with channels internationally and we are building a significant
merchandising, video, mobile and online presence to support the broadcast
brand. We intend to strengthen this over the coming months with further
partnerships and will be attending MIPTV aiming to secure further deals for the
property across different platforms.”