Chickpea and Friends Lands on Tencent in China

Hoho Rights has inked a deal to send the animated preschool series Chickpea and Friends to the Chinese VOD platform Tencent.

The Chickpea and Friends companion series of themed compilations that includes songs, games and stories has already launched on Tencent, which is set to premiere the first season of the series over the summer. The kids’ show, developed and written by An Vrombaut and based on animal characters from S4C’s existing preschool strand Cyw, follows the adventures of Chickpea the chick and her six animal best friends who all live together in a big yellow house.

The Media Pioneers, Hoho’s exclusive Chinese distribution partner for Chickpea and Friends, negotiated the deal. The series was also recently acquired by Kidoodle.TV, a Canada-based safe streaming AVOD service that is available in more than 140 countries.

Helen Howells, joint managing director at Hoho Entertainment, said: “We’re thrilled to be bringing this lovely animated series to preschoolers in China and it’s been a pleasure working with Maggie and her team to make this happen. Chickpea and Friends is all about exploring so it’s no surprise to see the intrepid animals continuing their travels in China!”

Maggie Liang, managing director at The Media Pioneers, said: “We are proud to represent Hoho Rights to distribute Chickpea and Friends to the Chinese market. The series is an ideal companion for little ones taking their first steps in life and we are sure that Chinese audiences will take the charming characters to their hearts.”

Sioned Wyn Roberts from S4C said: “The characters from Chickpea and Friends have long been favorites with children on S4C, whether originally as part of Cyw or with their own series, and we always believed kids globally would love them too so we are thrilled to see them setting out on this exciting new adventure.”