Marathon Media


Carrington to head Zodiak Kids Studios

Zodiak Kids has created a studio that will bring together the DeAgostini-owned company’s UK and French production arms. Zodiak Kids Studios will consist of UK-based prodco The Foundation and France’s Marathon Media and Tele Images Productions, with Foundation CEO Michael Carrington taking on the same post for the umbrella brand. Marathon’s chief creative officer Eryk […]

Zodiak’s Alessandri resurfaces with French indie

Former Télé Images Productions president Philippe Alessandri has returned to the fold by launching an animation and drama-focused indie producer in Paris. WatchNext Media will look to create shows with “engaging brands and aspirational stories” for the international market. It will also focus on properties that can work as television series, apps and licensing products. […]

9 Story poaches Marathon’s McCann

9 Story Media Group has hired Marathon Media creative producer Jennifer McCann to become director of development at the Canadian company. At Peg + Cat producer 9 Story, McCann will be responsible for sourcing and developing animated and live-action kids properties. Mike Drach will continue to lead projects in funded development, while McCann will focus […]

David Michel: Content extremes and the new radical indies

It is now quite clear that our industry is witness to major changes, which are affecting scripted coproductions in both drama and children’s programming. On the production side, a new tide of concentration of the key media players is sweeping Europe and Asia where massive media groups are about to be formed, Endemol-Shine-Core being the […]

Signs of the Zodiak

In his first interview since becoming Zodiak Media’s CEO, Marc-Antoine d’Halluin outlines his plan to turn its group of worldwide production companies and studios into a unified confederation, while putting international format development at the heart of the business. Jesse Whittock reports. With an office perched at the summit of a west London business village, […]

Michel’s Cottonwood bags Ollie, Squish

Cottonwood Media, the indie set up by former Marathon Media boss David Michel, has bagged its first shows. These are Ollie & Moon, a preschool series based on a book property from US author and illustrator Diane Kredensor, and Squish, a 6-11-targeted show based on a best-selling comedic graphic novel. Michel set up Cottonwood earlier […]

MBC3 scores 150 hours from Zodiak Kids

The Middle East’s MBC3 has acquired a 150-hour package of programming from distributor Zodiak Kids. The deal will see Officially Amazing, Extreme Football (pictured), Totally Spies, The Amazing Spiez, Totally Spies – The Movie and Martin Mystery, which all come from Zodiak-owned Marathon Media, heading to the MBC Group channel. They will broadcast in English […]

France: kids TV at a crossroads

With the Annecy animation festival beginning today, Pascale Paoli-Lebailly hears from leading players about the wave of changes that have befallen the French toon industry in the past year. The French animation industry is renowned for its creative output in both TV and the cinema. The sector – which can in part thank production quotas, […]

Ciwen to sell Zodiak Kids fare in China

China’s Ciwen Media Group will represent more than 390 episodes from the Zodiak Kids catalogue in China. Zodiak has granted Ciwen exclusive distribution rights to programming from Zodiak Media’s French studios Marathon Media and Tele Images and The Illuminated Film Company. From Marathon comes Totally Spies, The Amazing Spiez and Rekkit Rabbit, and from Tele […]

Zodiak hires France CEO

Zodiak Media has hired Gaspard de Chavagnac as CEO of its French operation putting him in charge of production companies including KM, Marathon, GTV, Tele Images, Marathon Media and Mona Lisa. De Chavagnac is the founder of French production company Odena Media and Discovery-backed pay channel Televista. He also worked at premium broadcaster Canal+ as […]