Acamar Films announces international TV sales, distribution deal with Aardman and new licensing partners
Skwigly
London based Acamar Films, the independent production company and distributor behind the children’s television show BING, is today announcing a wide range of new international broadcast and licensing partners to follow the hugely successful UK launch of BING on CBeebies this summer.
Acamar and Aardman are also jointly this morning announcing a new global distribution partnership on BING between Acamar and Aardman’s Rights and Brand Development division.
Acamar Films has announced broadcast deals for BING with Australia’s ABC, S4C in Wales, Irish broadcaster RTE, as well as SVT, and Danish channel DR across Scandinavia. The series has also sold across Eastern Europe to Minimax, and will reach Belgian audiences via broadcaster VRT. Discussions continue on a wide range of additional territories at MIPCOM.
To strengthen Acamar’s distribution of BING it has entered into a global distribution partnership with Aardman. The specialist team at Aardman will now handle a wide range of key territories on Acamar’s behalf with Acamar continuing to handle the countries covered by existing coproductions on Bing, as well as sales in the USA and Japan.
BING continues to perform strongly in the licensing market with the announcement of two new key licensees and the appointment of Merchantwise as licensing agent for Australia. In addition, Egmont, one of Europe’s leading publishers, has been appointed to develop a dedicated BING magazine which will launch this December in the UK, Eire, Germany, Austria, Switzerland as well as in the Nordic region and Russia. Ravensburger has also signed up to produce a range of BING themed puzzles in the UK for this Christmas. Both of these partnerships were brokered by The Licensing Company on behalf of Acamar Films.
Mikael Shields, CEO of Acamar Films and the Producer of BING comments:
“We’re thrilled. The response to the launch of BING on CBeebies in the UK this summer has been overwhelming and it’s exciting now to be working with our international broadcast and licensing partners to reach a global audience for our work. We honestly think the Aardman team are the best in the industry so it feels like an intelligent choice for Acamar to enlist them to help us to build on BING’s success.”
Alix Wisemen, Head of Sales and Acquisitions at Aardman comments:
“From the moment we first saw Bing we were mesmerised. It is a rare thing to find a show so meticulously executed and we are truly thrilled to have secured the rights.”
Alan Schauder, Managing Director of Merchantwise says:
“We are proud and excited to be representing Bing and can’t wait for Australian audiences to meet him for the first time. Apart from looking incredible, this show has an amazing ability to talk to pre-schoolers in a very authentic way. We have no doubt that Bing will be loved by Australian pre-schoolers and their parents for years to come.”
The launch of a range of ‘BING things’ has already begun. HarperCollins launched a new range of TV tie-in books to its existing “Classic BING” publishing range this week. The Acamar and TLC teams are also now working on a range of BING toys in collaboration with global market leader Fisher Price for launch in the summer of 2015.
BING has enjoyed a phenomenal response to the first 40 episodes which launched in June this year, across television, social media and the BBC’s iPlayer. The show now enjoys an enviable 4 slots a day Monday to Friday, increased from the previous 2 slots daily. The full 78 episode series will continue with additional debut broadcasts stretching well into 2015.
Celebrating the noisy, joyful, messy reality of everyday life when you’re a pre-schooler, BING stories are small but they are full of drama; micro-dramas depicting everyday events that all young children and the grown-ups in their lives will recognise. Just when Bing thinks he’s got the hang of life, it can swing right back and knock him over. But it’s okay – as Bing’s companion and carer Flop says: “Never mind Bing, it’s no big thing!”
BING has been adapted from the insightful books by award-winning author and illustrator Ted Dewan. The series has been meticulously developed by a hand-picked team at Acamar in partnership with leading Irish animation studio Brown Bag Films.