Entrevista a Jérôme Alby - Jefe de Mediatoon

El pasado 21 de noviembre, Kristin Brzoznowski entrevistó a Jérôme Alby, el jefe principal de Mediatoon. De la extensa entrevista hemos escogido la parte en la que el jefe habla sobre Código Lyoko y os traducimos aquí:

TV KIDS: ¿Qué ha significado la adquisición de Moonscoop para el negocio global de Mediatoon?
JÉRÔME ALBY: La adquisición de Moonscoop ha significado tres cosas importantes para nosotros. En primer lugar, enriquece nuestra oferta de contenido: ahora distribuimos más de 2.300 horas de programación, convirtiéndonos en uno de los mayores proveedores de contenido para niños de Europa, ¡y el más grande de Francia! En segundo lugar, trae consigo un montón de personajes icónicos como SamSam, Lyoko (de Código Lyoko) y Titeuf para acompañar a los que ya tenemos: Astérix, Tintin, Garfield, Spirou, Yakari, etc. Y, en tercer lugar, para seguir desde este punto, sirve a nuestra estrategia de desarollar marcas ya famosas, pero también nuevas creaciones en las que creemos fuertemente. Como gestores de propiedades intelectuales, sí comercializamos marcas famosas y clásicas, pero también nos encanta manejar propiedades que se convertirán en las marcas icónicas de mañana.

A continuación os dejamos la entrevista completa (en inglés):

The French outfit Mediatoon Distribution boasts a catalogue of more than 2,300 hours of programming, comprised of kids’ and family animation. It represents a wealth of iconic properties, including The Garfield Show, The Adventures of Tintin and Yakari, produced by its production companies, but also complements the slate with select third-party acquisitions such as Naruto, The Crumpets, The Darwinners and many more. Early this year, after a valuable buyout process, Mediatoon incorporated a significant part of the assets of Moonscoop into its catalogue, bringing with it a slew of well-known titles. Mediatoon Distribution was also named Distributor of the Year at this year’s Cartoon Forum. Jérôme Alby, Mediatoon’s managing director, talks to TV Kids about what this acquisition has meant for the company and shares with us his view of what buyers are looking for nowadays in the marketplace.

TV KIDS: What has the Moonscoop acquisition meant for Mediatoon’s overall business?
ALBY: The Moonscoop acquisition meant three important things to us. Firstly, it enriches our content offer: we now distribute more than 2,300 hours of programming, making us one of the largest providers of kids’ content in Europe, and the biggest in France! Secondly, it brings with it a lot of iconic characters like SamSam, Lyoko (of Code Lyoko) and Tootuff to go along with the ones we already have: Astérix, Tintin, Garfield, Spirou, Yakari, etc. And thirdly, to follow on from this point, it serves our strategy to develop already famous brands, but also new creations that we strongly believe in. As IP managers, we do commercialize famous and classic brands, but we also love to manage properties that will turn into tomorrow’s new iconic brands.

TV KIDS: What new properties is Mediatoon rolling out?
ALBY: We have seven in-house production labels, but we also like to do targeted acquisitions of what we think is complementary. The Crumpets is a CANAL+ commission. We discovered it at Cartoon Forum 2011 and fell in love with the project by 4.21 Productions.

The great thing about the show is that it’s biting comedy for a target of 8-plus. That is very complementary to what we have. A lot of our content is based on classic brands, with safe and international values, so this helps to open our catalogue a little bit more. We’ve had some interesting prebuys on it, including Globo in Brazil for the kids’ channel Gloob and RTBF in French-speaking Belgium for its dedicated kids’ channel, as well as TV5MONDE and TELETOON.

Comedy is definitely one of the subgenres that works really well nowadays. This is especially true if that comedy has co-viewing potential, which The Crumpets does. If you have co-viewing potential, that’s good for the channel, because it is broader in terms of advertising.

TV KIDS: How do you balance what’s coming through from Mediatoon’s sister production companies with third-party content?
ALBY: We have an internal lineup where we define genres for different types of projects. The acquisitions we do are complementary to what the different in-house producers have in their lineups. We judge the potential of each, and whenever we see there is a void, we look to fill it.

In terms of third-party content, we’re always looking for good comedy. We’re also known for managing iconic brands, so whenever there is an iconic brand with an idea for making a series, we align ourselves with it. Ninety-five percent of our catalogue is kids’ and family animation, which is our specialty. As proof of this, one of our iconic series, Yakari, has just been nominated for the TVFI Export Award. 

TV KIDS: With Netflix having entered France and other on-demand services popping up, is digital becoming a larger focus for Mediatoon?
ALBY: We have been working with Netflix for several years now, in different countries (the U.S., Scandinavia, the Netherlands, the U.K.). Now that they launched in France, Belgium and Germany, we are of course continuing to work with them.

However, as well as working with Netflix, we have provided series to other digital broadcasters, such as iTunes, Watchever, Amazon and DLA. For many years now, digital and nonlinear broadcasting has been a key element of our business strategy. Nonlinear broadcasting now makes up 20 percent of our sales figures, versus 2.5 percent in 2009. While Mediatoon obviously offers up our catalogue to digital platforms, we also act as an aggregator, which means that we manage these rights for many independent producers. This enables us to offer an even richer catalogue. So overall, yes, nonlinear broadcasting is an increasing and complementary focus for us, which along with linear broadcasting, helps us to carry out our overall strategy of managing iconic brands worldwide on all media.
Puedes ver la entrevista también en: http://www.worldscreen.com/articles/display/47905