Broadcast & Digital Deals for Henson Preschool Shows

HOLLYWOOD: HIP (Henson Independent Properties), The Jim Henson Company’s third-party licensing and distribution label, has secured broadcast and digital license deals for the preschool series Elias: Rescue Team Adventures and Lily’s Driftwood Bay.

NCircle Entertainment has secured DVD rights in the U.S. for Lily’s Driftwood Bay, a mixed-media animated series for kids aged 4 to 6 that follows the imaginative adventures of 5-year-old Lily. In Asia, DAAI TV has picked up the exclusive free-TV rights for Indonesia. Additionally, Multichoice Africa has acquired non-exclusive SVOD and AVOD rights for the continent. Discovery Education, meanwhile, has acquired global educational rights for the property.

Elias: Rescue Team Adventures, a CGI-animated series about a playful tugboat, has been licensed in the U.S., Asia and Europe. Vme TV, a national Spanish-language network operating in association with public TV stations, has acquired exclusive basic cable rights for the series for the U.S. Hispanic market. Elias: Rescue Team Adventures was also licensed to POD Worldwide, which picked up exclusive free-TV rights for Thailand, and by MediaCorp, which signed on for exclusive free-TV rights. Additionally, in Eastern Europe, Tring TV has come on board for free TV, basic cable and basic satellite rights in Albania. These agreements are in addition to existing partnerships with Ireland’s TG4, Finland’s MTV Oy, Sweden’s SVT and United Home Entertainment in Thailand.

“Henson’s HIP banner continues to amass strong sales across all platforms for the distinctive children’s series Lily’s Driftwood Bay and Elias: Rescue Team Adventures,” remarked Richard Goldsmith, the executive VP of global distribution at The Jim Henson Company. “We’re excited to be going to MIPTV this year to present these titles to potential new partners, in addition to all of our new series from The Jim Henson Company, including Dot., Splash & Bubbles and Word Party.”