Little Engine Drives Full Speed into Distribution

After ten years of developing content, Toronto’s Little Engine Moving Pictures made its way into the distribution business in August 2021. Since then, its library has grown to 15 titles, which it has sold to broadcast partners all around the world, including Australia, Germany, Israel, South Korea, the U.K., the U.S. and, its home territory, Canada.

Moving into the distribution business “mostly stemmed from us wanting to take more ownership and control over our series’ sales,” Kyle Perez, business development lead, tells TV Kids. “We knew, being boutique and nimble, that we could quickly carve out a niche as a more intimate, hands-on distribution company that could give other production companies that kind of one-on-one attention that we were striving for.”

The company has continued with this mindset as its business continues to grow. “Being boutique, we want to be very mindful of the whole process,” Perez says. “If a show isn’t selling, we’re very up front with this with the producers we work with. We want to be transparent and efficient for our producing partners.”

“One thing that we do really like to do with our partners is to have weekly or biweekly meetings just to catch up as their distributor and let them know what’s going on,” explains Maria Kennedy, owner of Little Engine. “That’s not always the case with larger distributors. There might be quarterly reports. But we like to have one-on-one conversations and meetings with our partners.”

The company’s distribution business has been aided by the proliferation of so many platforms—including those specifically for children—and their request for metadata. “Some of our partners may ask for particular episodes that hit a certain keyword or theme,” Perez explains. “So, if a streamer or network at the time is looking for farm-related episodes, we’ll go through our catalog to see what fits the bill for that category.”

Kennedy adds, “A little kid may just want to watch shows about farm animals, and if they type in those keywords, they’re going to see different episodes from different shows. That helps our producing partners. It helps the discoverability of their shows.”

In terms of what the company is looking to pick up right now, “we want shows that are pure, thrilling fun for young audiences around the world,” Kennedy says. “Striking a balance between education and entertainment is really important for us.”

Among the latest additions to the ever-growing Little Engine distribution library is The Smack-Dab in the Middle of the Day Show from Mango Moon Productions. The live-action/puppetry hybrid talk show for 4- to 8-year-olds is rooted in social-emotional learning. “It blends catchy songs with fun academic strategies,” Perez says.

“All in all, we want our development pipeline and our distribution library to complement one another,” Kennedy notes. “We’re looking for consistency in shows from third-party producers that are similar to those of Little Engine.” The Smack-Dab in the Middle of the Day Show fits well with this strategy, as the company’s development slate features a wide variety of live-action hybrid series and puppet-led shows.

That being said, Kennedy stresses that they are open to working with new creators and producing partners on other types of programming as well. Another new addition to the catalog is Dino Powers, a high-end 3D animated action-adventure series set in a world where kids and robot dinosaurs coexist and convert into fast vehicles. “It’s not something that we’ve produced or distributed in the past, but we definitely see a desire for that kind of content globally,” she says. “And we just really love the partners at Dofala Studio in Thailand and Indonesia. We’ve had some amazing meetings with them. We’re really excited to work with them and try something new and challenging for us.”

In terms of age demographics, Kennedy and Perez note that preschool series and those for 6- to 10-year-olds are plentiful and popular with networks around the world, but they “would love to see more interest in shows for 8 to 12s and young teens,” Kennedy says.

They recently picked up BoyBand the Series, a live-action coming-of-age story for this age demo. From World Star Network, it tells the story of two artist trainees who are rivals in a cutthroat competition to debut as the next big boy band in the Thai music scene. With this show and the others they have picked up, “we’re pushing ourselves creatively as a distribution company,” Kennedy notes.

Of course, Little Engine continues to work on developing its own shows, too. Its upcoming slate includes Tiny and Tall, created by Ben Mazzotta with his new 3D motion-capture animated workflow, and Benjamin Ojo, an early teen live-action mystery series from writer, director and influencer Tope Babalola. On the preschool side is Ava + Pixels, about a little girl and her cat, Pixels, who live in a video-game-style world. “The educational component is that it’s coding for preschoolers,” Kennedy says.

Additionally, it is in early development with Rahrang Studio on HeyDays, a preschool animated series “about the days of the week come to life as comedic characters, who live in a super colorful world,” Kennedy notes. “They won the best preschool pitch competition at the Asia TV Forum.”

No matter how big the catalog grows, however, Little Engine plans to remain true to its roots.

“We’re working with amazingly creative new teams all over the world, but we still try to stay true to being a boutique company and working with a small but growing library of really, really exceptional titles,” Kennedy says.