Imira Scores Deals for Lola & Virginia

BARCELONA, May 20: Spain’s
Imira Entertainment has signed a raft of new broadcast, licensing, interactive
and home-entertainment deals for its girl-skewing animated series Lola &
Virginia.

Television sales include a
deal with Nickelodeon Korea, which has become the fifth Nickelodeon channel to
acquire Lola & Virginia.
Turkey’s Digiturk has also snapped up the pay-TV rights to all 52×12-minute
episodes of the series. On the home-entertainment front, DVD rights to the show
have been purchased by Planet of Hits in Russia and Quality Films in Chile.

In Latin America, IMC
Licensing has acquired the rights to Lola & Virginia for Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. This
follows recent licensing deals with RAI Trade, the commercial arm of RAI, for
the Italian merchandising rights to the property, and Panini, which is planning
to roll out Lola &
Virginia sticker books, story
albums, puzzle and coloring books in Italy, as well as Spain, Portugal and
Brazil.

A VOD deal has been signed
with PorchLight’s Internet portal, KidMango, in the U.S. and, in a further
deal, Canada’s Tribal Nova, a developer and distributor of interactive content for
kids, has picked up Lola &
Virginia for the website Kid
Studio, which includes the Canadian-French and English-language VOD and gaming
rights to the property.

Lola & Virginia is a co-production between Imira
Entertainment, Millimages, France 3, TV Catalunya and ETB, and is based on the original concept created by Myriam
Ballesteros, the founding partner of Imira Entertainment with Sergi Reitg.

Christophe Goldberger, the
head of distribution and marketing at Imira Entertainment, said: “Lola &
Virginia is performing strongly
across international markets with high ratings on channels supported by home
entertainment and VOD deals as well as an expanding licensing and merchandising
program. We are focused on extending the presence of the brand in key markets
and look forward to forging new partnerships in New York at Licensing
International next month.”

—By Irene Lew