TBI Weekly: The best of Cartoon Forum

Cartoon Forum took place this week, bringing in some of the best animators, distributors, producers and broadcasters in Europe to the French city of Toulouse from 11-14 September.

Each year, the Forum awards Cartoon Tributes for the best broadcaster, investor/distributor and producer. A majority among the 900 attendees at the Forum voted France Télévisions as broadcaster of the year, Germany’s Beta Film as distributor of the year and French prodco Dandeloo as producer of the year for 2017.

French firms once again dominated the pitch numbers, with France Télévisions-backed preschool series Stinky Dog drawing in 325 deleates, almost a third of whom were investors.

Producers from other parts of Europe quietly grumble the numbers are skewed as France’s producers and broadcasters tend to support each other, but the fact French companies were involved in all the top pitches suggests Gallic animators remain on top.

Attendees at this years Forum included Netflix kids and family creative development exec Jill Sanford and Amazon Studios’ head of kids programming Tara Sorensen, as the influence of digital buyers continues to grow.

Meanwhile, Cartoon Forum chief Marc Vandeweyer was shocked by the lack of UK entries, which have reduced from an average of eight to ten entries to just four this year.

Key to this year’s event was the European Commission’s announcement that it has set an animation growth plan for Europe with partners such as Cartoon Forum, Animation in Europe and MIFA, the Annecy festival.

Also in the news…

Toronto’s Portfolio Entertainment is taking new kids shows Bubu and the Little Owls and Cyberchase to MIPCOM

With the Cannes confab quickly approaching, Italy’s BIC Formats has unveiled a slate of “sexy” formats, namely Light My Fire, DNA Adventure and On Your Skin. Another Italian company, Stand By Me, teamed with pubcaster RAI to launch a local version of Studio Lambert-created format Common Sense

Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav has been named MIPCOM 2017 Personality of the Year. Meanwhile, BBC Worldwide is bringing Hollywood star William Fichtner and his Top Gear America co-hosts to Cannes for a chat about cars and television

Televisa took Mexican free TV rights to eOne Family’s preschool superhero show PJ Masks

Passion Distribution has secured an exclusive two-year distribution deal with UK-based factual prodco Lambent Productions

Time Inc.’s ad-supported OTT service People Entertainment Weekly Network has rebranded as PeopleTV

Gaumont and Ivanhoe Pictures are coproducing a Mars-set sci-fi series from The Big Short’s Charles Randolph, which is titled Red Rush

Kiwi online TV service Lightbox has renewed its deal with programme insight provider Parrot Analytics

BBC One in the UK has commissioned Panda Television to produce a format in which couples go head-to-head to win a dream wedding, titled Wedding Day Winners, while BBC Worldwide made its first deal with African pay TV service Kwese TV

Also in Britain, ITV has commissioned Red Production Company to create an Anna Friel-starring miniseries, Butterfly

TVF International has sold The Man Who Shot Tutankhamun and other BBC Four docs to networks including SBS, Foxtel, Knowledge Network and RTL Geo. Culinary series James Martin’s French Adventure and Nadiya’s Food Adventure have sold to networks in Europe and Australasia thanks to distributor DCD Rights, while Hat Trick International has sold the latest season of The CW’s Whose Line is it Anyway? to networks including Comedy Channel in Australia and MTG in Norway

The rebooted Will and Grace is headed to Israeli IPTV service Partner TV through a that Vubiquity facilitated

London-based distributor Cake popped out of the Cartoon Forum to announce Super 4, a kids comedy action series coproducing with South Africa’s Triggerfish Animation Studios

Marvista Entertainment secured distribution rights to 65x10mins series Dream Street from Platinum Films, while Ireland’s Monster Entertainment has shopped Brewster the Rooster to ABC Kids in Australia and YLE in Finland among others

A TiVo study revealed audiences in the US, Europe and Latin America are watching as much as 4.4 hours of video content every day

ZDF Enterprises will sell EuropaCorp’s Franco-German miniseries The Crimson Rivers, which is currently in production in Belgium

UKTV used an annual live season launch event to announce new British shows such as The Wave, The Customiser is Always Right (WT) and Celebrity Haunted Mansion

Disney Channel in Japan has bought family comedy Cracké from Quebec-based producer-distributor Squeeze

The week’s top TBI stories:

• A Russian withdrawal for Netflix and Amazon has been predicted
• Netflix CFO David Wells has defended its $6bn content spend
• Sky’s Spanish SVOD service was officially launched
• The pay TV industry set for ‘unprecedented change’, a report claims
• Fox’s Jeff Ford retires as UK programming chief Toby Etheridge exits