MoonScoop’s Christophe di Sabatino

April 2007

MoonScoop Productions,
formed in 2004 from the merger of France Animation and Antefilms Production,
quickly became one of the leading animation houses in Europe. With series such
as Titeuf,
Funky Cops
and the mega hit Code Lyoko,
the company developed a reputation
for quality children’s entertainment. But the cofounders of MoonScoop, the
brothers Benoît and Christophe di Sabatino, felt that the company needed to
grow further and establish a firm presence in the U.S. In 2005, they acquired a
51-percent stake in Mike Young Productions and its brand management and
distribution arm Taffy Entertainment, and formed the MoonScoop Group. The
combined catalogue now includes more than 3,000 half hours of animation and
popular shows such as Jakers!
The Adventures of Piggley Winks, Pet
Alien and ToddWorld.
MoonScoop’s copresident Christophe di Saba­tino talks about the company’s future.

TV KIDS: What
was the reason for the merger with Mike Young Productions?

DI SABATINO: We
had worked on a co-production with Mike Young on the series Pet Alien. It was a CGI show, and we developed a very good
relationship. In co-productions, it’s very rare when you work together for two
years and still remain friends!

We bought France Animation
two years ago, and we ­wanted to continue to expand on the business side. We
had seen that Mike Young Productions was a very good company. The producers,
Mike and Liz, are very talented. They have done great shows in the past and
continue to do so. So we began discussions to see how we could join our
companies and how we could create synergies in distribution and in licensing.
As a result of our discussions, we bought a majority stake in Mike Young
Productions. It was not our intention at the beginning, but we compared the
companies, we were a little bigger than them, and so we took a majority stake.

And we did accomplish our
main purpose, which was to create a licensing and a distribution arm together.
We have launched Taffy Entertainment.

TV KIDS: You
were one of the first French companies to break into the American market.
You’ve had huge success with Code Lyoko on Cartoon Network.

DI SABATINO:
Yes, it has been successful in the U.S. market and everywhere else it has
aired. We want to build on that success, and at MIPTV we will offer season four
of Code Lyoko, so there will be
a total of 97 episodes. And it has a very big licensing program, with trading
cards, toys, and we have signed agreements for games on Nintendo DS and
Nintendo Wii—which will be released next Christmas. I like to play with
Nintendo Wii, so I am very happy! It’s easy and more fun than to use the
joystick. The whole family can have fun because you are not sitting in front of
your TV and you can move around. So we want to create a very beautiful Code
Lyoko game for Nintendo Wii.

TV KIDS: Code
Lyoko has a very big online
community.

DI SABATINO: A
very, very big one. We have an official Code Lyoko website, but a lot of children are making their
own websites. So that is why there is a very big community around Code Lyoko and its characters.

TV KIDS:
MoonScoop has also moved into the channel business and recently launched
Kabillion in the U.S.

DI SABATINO: We
made a deal with Comcast and Kabillion launched in January. It’s a free VOD
channel and we are on Comcast’s basic offer, so right from the beginning it was
a very big launch because a lot of people have Comcast in the U.S. [Comcast is
the leading cable operator in the U.S. and reaches 24.2 million cable customers
and 11.5 million high-speed Internet customers]. We offer some shows from
MoonScoop and a new one we bought called Bobby’s World. It is very successful on Kabillion. [Bobby’s
World follows the adventures of a
4-year-old as he learns about the world.] It was developed by comedian Howie
Mandel—the host of the American version of Deal or No Deal [who also provides the voice of Bobby as well as
Bobby’s dad and a myriad other guest characters].

TV KIDS: You
also have a Taffy Channel in Europe.

DI SABATINO: We
have Queen Bee [a Taffy subsidiary]. They are launching the Taffy Channel on
mobile and on the Internet—so it is VOD plus games. They are producing
games based on our properties.

TV KIDS: Games
are a huge part of the children’s business today, aren’t they?

DI SABATINO: Yes, online games and mobile games, and we want our
properties to live on those platforms and have good exposure. And games offer
children a way of playing with properties. Even if they aren’t watching them on
TV or VOD, they can play games with the properties they like.

TV KIDS: Do you
have plans for other channels, whether on broadband or mobile? Is that a
growing part of your business?

DI SABATINO: In
fact, we want to launch some new channels on new media with games and VOD. But
we don’t want to launch classic TV channels. It’s not our economic model.

TV KIDS: What
upcoming television projects are you excited about?

DI SABATINO: We
have a number of shows we will be bringing to MIPTV. We have two new preschool
series. One is called Lamimila,
a co-production between CharacterPlan in Korea and France 5. And we also have
the second series of ToddWorld,
which is produced by Mike Young.

We have a new show called Cosmic
Quantum Ray. It’s a science-based
comedy-action-adventure series featuring 3-D CGI animation and it consists of
26 half hours. [The show was created by a quantum physicist, Dr. Mani Bhaumik,
and each episode will have a basis in actual quantum physics theory.]

And we have a new show
based on a very famous character—Casper. It’s a new CGI series of 52
11-minute episodes called Casper the Friendly Ghost, and it’s a co-production with Classic Media [in
the U.S.], DQ Entertainment in India and TF1 in France.

Finally, we are going to
launch the second season of Pet Alien, the show we made with Mike Young Productions, and the fourth season
of Code Lyoko.

TV KIDS: Do you
always try to do co-productions when you are creating a new series that is
going to be expensive and that you want to have international appeal?

DI SABATINO:
Not always. For example, Code Lyoko
was not a co-production. Sometimes co-production is a good model—on Casper it’s a very good model because the property was
owned by Classic Media. [India’s DQ Entertainment has also come on board as a
co-production partner and the series will be developed with TF1 in France.] But
it depends on the property and on how the work and the financing are split
between partners.

TV KIDS: What
do you enjoy about your work?

DI SABATINO: I
derive great satisfaction from creating new shows and new characters. Even if
it is a wonderful and classic property like Casper, it is still a re-creation.
And what I like about my job is having all those new-media platforms available
thanks to the digital revolution in our business. It may be risky in some aspects,
but it’s very exciting.

TV KIDS: Can
you reveal any secrets about what the new Casper in the digital world will be like?

DI SABATINO: It
will be a beautiful series and based on
Casper’s Scare School,
the CG special produced by Classic Media, so the series will be around this
concept.