Animasia Announces Three Deals at ATF

SINGAPORE: Malaysia’s Animasia Studio unveiled a trio of deals at the Asia TV Forum, including one to co-produce short-form kids’ content for the region.

In partnering with Prodigee Media, Animasia will develop programming that will be exclusively distributed and marketed under a new kids’ channel brand by WebTVAsia. The new, as-yet-unnamed online channel is expected to launch in Q1 2016.

The pact kicks off with a series of animated nursery rhyme videos, with Prodigee’s music division creating original songs in various languages. Animasia is tasked with producing the animation, using characters from its library. WebTVAsia will globally release the content on digital platforms like YouTube, Dailymotion, Tencent, Youku Tudou, LeTV and Whaley TV.

Fred Chong, Group CEO of Prodigee and WebTVAsia, noted, “Localized children’s content with high production and educational qualities are in great demand in Asia. Combining Prodigee’s creative know-how and WebTVAsia’s extensive digital reach, I look forward to partnering with Animasia Studio in creating a successful Asian kids digital channel brand.”

Nickelodeon India has acquired Animasia’s Chuck Chicken, a series targeting kids 7 to 11 that will launch in January of next year on the channel.

“We at Nickelodeon are always on the lookout for engaging and entertaining content for our channel,” said Anu Sikka, senior VP of programming and scheduling of the kids cluster for Nickelodeon India at Viacom 18. “Animasia Studio is known for creating shows with high entertainment values and ‘Chuck Chicken’ is one of them. We hope that this show will further complement the existing lineup of shows on Sonic which consists of primarily fast-paced humorous shows.”

Animasia also announced that the Content Malaysia Pitching Centre will co-fund the preschool series Magiki. Zodiak Kids is set to distribute the show internationally, with Animasia handling Southeast Asia.