{"id":11815,"date":"2017-02-17T09:10:17","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T14:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/mediatoon-distributions-jerome-alby\/"},"modified":"2017-02-20T09:48:42","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T14:48:42","slug":"mediatoon-distributions-jerome-alby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/mediatoon-distributions-jerome-alby\/","title":{"rendered":"Mediatoon Distribution\u2019s J\u00e9r\u00f4me Alby"},"content":{"rendered":"

J\u00e9r\u00f4me Alby, the managing director of Mediatoon Distribution, tells\u00a0<\/em>TV Kids\u00a0about the value of having timeless characters and working with partners to give properties a 360-degree rollout.<\/em><\/p>\n

Belonging to the M\u00e9dia-Participations group, Mediatoon Distribution offers a broad mix of animated series, including a wealth of product from sister companies such as Dargaud Media, Ellipsanime, Dupuis Audiovisuel, Belvision and Storimages. The company\u2019s catalog is also home to third-party programming from various producers, giving it a well-rounded slate that has something for all age groups, from preschoolers to teens to family co-viewing.<\/p>\n

\"***Image***\"TV KIDS:\u00a0<\/strong>How did the idea come about to expand\u00a0The Crumpets\u00a0<\/em>franchise with\u00a0Teen Crumpets<\/em>?
\nALBY:<\/strong>\u00a0The Crumpets\u00a0<\/em>features a massive family of 142 kids! Within the\u00a0six or seven kids that stood out, there are a couple of teenagers. When season one aired, the feedback from viewers was that the teens\u00a0and tweens\u00a0were the ones that had the most appeal. So the commissioning channel, Canal+, and 4.21 Productions focused on them more in this new season, thus the title Teen Crumpets<\/em>. The drawing board was still hot; they started to work on 52 new episodes for the channel. The series has already been prebought by RTBF for OUFtivi, where season one was a huge hit! The first season has been sold in Latin America to Gloob, in Spain to regional channels, to multiple SVOD platforms and very recently to Canada.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:\u00a0<\/strong>Why is now a good time to revisit the series\u00a0Yakari<\/em>?
\nALBY:<\/strong>\u00a0The character is timeless! For this fourth season,\u00a0Yakari<\/em>\u00a0was produced using CGI animation, but with a 2D rendering, thus making sure children can clearly feel that there is a real continuity throughout the seasons. Nevertheless, the CGI treatment allowed multiple shots and zooms that weren\u2019t possible in 2D. For example, now you can have a shot of Yakari from the top of the mountains that will move closer to Yakari in a way that feels like a dolly shot rather than a simple zoom. Since\u00a0Yakari<\/em>\u00a0puts a strong emphasis on nature and landscapes, the photography is even more beautiful with this treatment.<\/p>\n

Launched last MIPCOM, this additional series has been acquired by many broadcasters internationally (DR, Minimax, NRK, ORF, Amazon, T\u00e9l\u00e9-Qu\u00e9bec). Commissioned by France T\u00e9l\u00e9visions and WDR\/ARD, the series premiered on KiKA and scored number one among children 3 to 13.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:\u00a0<\/strong>Miru Miru\u00a0<\/em>has a similarly timeless look.
\nALBY:<\/strong>\u00a0The character and the production are brand new, even though it has a timeless look. The books have just been released in Europe by the publisher Dargaud. The producer Folimage and director Haruna Kishi, who created the character, have a safe bet.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:\u00a0<\/strong>How do you work with fellow companies and licensee partners to give a property a complete 360-degree rollout?
\nALBY:<\/strong>\u00a0It depends on the territory and the L&M potential a\u00a0series has. We usually plan an L&M timeline of how things are meant to happen, but at the end of the day, it\u2019s the market that chooses what will actually happen. We can only try to influence or guide it.<\/p>\n

Take\u00a0Yakari\u00a0<\/em>for example.\u00a0When the TV series was released, it took more than five years for the merchandising to really get started.\u00a0Luck and chemistry always play a big part.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:\u00a0<\/strong>Are you mining the catalogs of other M\u00e9dia-Participations companies for IP to distribute as series?
\nALBY:<\/strong>\u00a0Our in-house production labels look at everything, and their creative teams have a massive\u00a0development slate. And the IP catalogs of our fellow publishing houses are also proposed to independent third-party producers.\u00a0This is true for animated series, but also for movies. Take\u00a0Valerian & Laureline<\/em>\u00a0for example: the animated series was co-produced by Dargaud Marina, but the live-action movie\u00a0Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets<\/em>\u00a0was produced by EuropaCorp.\u00a0Same thing with\u00a0The Darwinners<\/em>, produced by Haut et Court.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, the goal is to find which production team (fellow and\/or third-party) comes up with the creative proposal that will best serve the IPs we\u00a0curate and manage.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:\u00a0<\/strong>How has business been with selling to the various digital and VOD platforms?
\nALBY:<\/strong>\u00a0Like many other content providers, we have some things in our portfolio that might be good for digital-first. You have to see how the market responds, and you have to look at your P&L. Today, it\u2019s still the traditional linear broadcasters that\u00a0seem to\u00a0come first. I\u2019m sure eventually it will change; right now, we want the transition to be done in a very safe way. Ours is a family-owned group,\u00a0and one of the reasons\u00a0it has been around\u00a0and lasting for so long is maybe because it is not public. They have a very simple saying: It\u2019s very easy to get rich\u2014just spend less money than you earn. None of our shows have premiered just on digital yet. However, the digital business is very much a focus for us. We have a dedicated internal team who manage our YouTube account with more than 100 official channels with key brands such as\u00a0Yakari,\u00a0Lucky Luke,\u00a0Taratabong, Crumpets and\u00a0Cedric\u00a0that are working really well. We try our best to always be ahead of the game with new platforms.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:\u00a0<\/strong>What are your priorities for the company as you look ahead?
\nALBY:<\/strong>\u00a0In terms of properties we have quite a big lineup, with at least three shows coming out in 2017\u2014of which two come from third-party studios. We\u2019re going to put a lot of effort into\u00a0Teen Crumpets<\/em>. We have a show from our new partner in Canada, Frima Studio, which is a video game company:\u00a0MaXi<\/em>. We also have a show from our in-house producer Dupuis Audiovisuel called\u00a0Little Furry<\/em>, which comes from a comic book that has been published very successfully for the last ten years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The company’s managing director discusses the value of having timeless characters and giving properties a 360-degree rollout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":350,"featured_media":11816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,21],"tags":[2349,231],"class_list":["post-11815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","category-top-stories","tag-jerome-alby","tag-mediatoon-distribution","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nMediatoon Distribution\u2019s J\u00e9r\u00f4me Alby - TVKIDS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/mediatoon-distributions-jerome-alby\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mediatoon Distribution\u2019s J\u00e9r\u00f4me Alby - 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