News round-up: Dandelooo snags ‘PongPong Dino’; GoQuest options ‘Troll Farm’; Pact ‘disappointed’ by C4

Pongpong Dino (Source: Dandelooo)

Dandelooo snags PongPong Dino

French animation production and distribution company Dandelooo has struck a deal with animation IP creator Dream Factory Studio in Korea for its preschool series PongPong Dino.

The French firm has picked up exclusive worldwide distribution rights to the 52 x 7-minute show, excluding China, South Korea and CIS.

The CGI animated series is targeted at two to four-year-olds and produced by Dream Factory, with Tacken Chae directing. it invites children to discover the world of PongPong Dino where food is transformed into play.

The deal was brokered by recently appointed international sales & acquisitions manager Hyeo Jin Moon.

Troll Farm (Source: GoQuest Media)

GoQuest options Troll Farm

Distributor GoQuest Media has struck an option agreement with Mumbai-based MadLab Films for the Lithuanian comedy-drama series Troll Farm.

Abhijeet Khuman and Gaurav Shukla, the creative duo of MadLab Films, will develop the project and adapt the five-part drama for Indian audiences.

Khuman and Shukla are known for Asur: Welcome To The Darkside, which claims to have been watched by 30 million viewers within its first three weeks of release.

Troll Farm (5 x 50 minutes) is a dramedy about a high-flying executive out for revenge, after being wrongly fired from a cosmetics company.

It was originally produced by Dansu Films and was directed by Ernestas Jankauskas, debuting on LRT and on local streaming platform Telia Play.

John McVay

Pact ‘disappointed’ by C4

UK trade body Pact has said it is “disappointed” at Channel 4’s plan to rule out the introduction of individual nations quotas for production in the UK.

The advertising-funded public broadcaster, which has been laying off staff over recent months amid a squeeze on budgets, recently confirmed it approved of a plan to maintain spending 9% of its budget on productions from the nations (those coming from outside of England).

Its CEO Alex Mahon has argued, however, that C4 should not face a nations quota such as the BBC’s, which stands at 16% and requires the pubcaster to hit a spend level in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

C4 added that it preferred a “carefully considered increase” instead, pointing to its “smaller size” versus that of the BBC.

Pact has now said it disagrees with C4’s analysis regarding the sustainability of individual nations quotas, responding to a request for input from UK regulator Ofcom, which is consulting on C4’s licence renewal.

The trade body added: “The BBC’s nations quotas were designed to reflect Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland’s share of the UK population. These have been instrumental in increasing spend in the nations and improving representation.

“While Channel 4 is smaller in scale than the BBC, the quotas, as they currently stand, are proportionate to hours and budget. Evidence submitted by Pact to Ofcom indicates the financial burden of increased nations quotas is less than Ofcom estimate.”

“Channel 4 plays an important role for indies based in the nations and regions. As part of Ofcom’s consultation on Channel 4’s licence renewal, Pact proposed that Channel 4’s voluntary commitment to spend 50% of its production budget outside of London should be written into its licence.

“We also proposed that nations quotas -in line with the BBC’s – should be introduced over the next licence period. This would help to grow the sector in the nations and regions and would also help to mitigate the impact of any Channel 4 in-house production arm.”