Maker’s Cartoonium Snaps Up The Beet Party
September 17, 2014 by Jeremy Dickson
http://kidscreen.com/2014/09/17/makers-cartoonium-snaps-up-the-beet-party/
Canada’s ToonBox Entertainment and South Korea-based Redrover have secured a U.S. distribution deal with Disney’s Maker Studios to air musical interstitial series The Beet Party on Maker’s Cartoonium channel. The deal continues the cross-platform success of the animated comedy series which has aired around the world on nets including Disney Junior (Latin America), SVT (Sweden), YLE (Finland), ABC (Australia), BBC Kids and Yoopa! (Canada), as well as on Nintendo 3DS in Europe and across LG Smart TVs globally. Beet Party follows the out-of-the-fridge adventures of five beatboxing beets that find hilarious and inventive ways to explore the greater world that is the kitchen. The pick-up comes on the heels of Toronto-headquartered ToonBox’s expansion into the US with the opening of a new L.A.-based office in July. After partnering on 3D stereoscopic TV series Bolts & Blip, ToonBox and Redrover found recent success with their animated 3D film The Nut Job, which posted the biggest opening (more than $25 million) of all time in the U.S. for an independent animated film. It’s gone on to gross more than $105 million worldwide.
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Disney Exec Says Maker will be the Next Marvel
September 12, 2014 by Todd Longwell
http://kidscreen.com/2014/09/12/disney-exec-says-maker-could-be-the-next-marvel/#ixzz3DXB3DoUa
Until now, the Walt Disney Company hasn’t been too vocal about the strategy behind its purchase of Maker Studios in March, which could cost up to US$950 million. But during an appearance at Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York City on Wednesday, Disney senior EVP and CFO Jay Rasulo laid it all out.
In its initial stages, “we believe it’s mostly a distribution play,” Rasulo told moderator Drew Borst. “But over time, we believe that Maker will be a big studio just like the Marvel Studio and just like the Lucasfilm Studio (acquisitions) and just like Disney Animation. It will be a content creator for the company.”
Rasulo went on to point out that while Disney’s vast content library has been monetized extensively via SVOD, it hasn’t scratched the surface with short-form. He said the company believes that Maker will be the driving force in taking it to the next step, reformatting and reusing the company’s content, whether it comes from ESPN, Disney Channel, local ABC stations or the ABC network.
Borst asked Rasulo about the commonly held belief that when companies shift content to their own sites so they can keep all the ad revenue to themselves, traffic drops off so dramatically that they’re forced back into the arms of YouTube.
Rasulo said that Disney’s own off-YouTube portal, Maker.tv, is doing “pretty well.”
“We’re selling ads pretty well into that space,” he added, “But, of course, the behemoth right now in the digital advertising that goes into short-form is clearly on YouTube [which splits the ad revenue], but we don’t see that as either a short-term or a long-term obstruction to profitability for Maker. The split still allows you to have a lot of revenue, and that revenue is growing incredibly rapidly, and the pie is gigantic.”
Rasulo said the size of Maker’s pie has grown since Disney’s purchase, going from four billion to nine billion monthly views.
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Enjoy an episode of The Beet Party in the episode, “CAMPING” – now playing on Cartoonium!
The beets build a tent from a tea-towel and enjoy the great outdoors (or out of FRIDGE doors) while Aneek Neek takes some ‘fishing time’ for himself in the sink.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC8w81-yNs8&feature=player_detailpage
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For more information about ToonBox Entertainment please contact:
Nahleena Tye
Marketing Manager
n.tye@toonboxent.com