Viewpoints: acquisitions strategies

Emmanuelle Baril
Acquisitions Director
CANAL J, TIJI, FILLES-TV, GULLI
France

What are your acquisition strategies?

We have various strategies, depending on each channel needs: TIJI is a pre-school channel targeted 2-6. We are looking for soft, tender, short programs, mostly animations, which help children to open themselves to the world. CANAL J is more edgy, targeted 6-12, pure entertainment action-adventure-comedy driven programs. GULLI is targeted 6-15 and family orientated, first and single youth DTT channel. We're looking for animation and live-action programs for kids, and for the whole family. It is a main channel for children and their parents. FILLES-TV is our teenage and young adults channel targeted 15-24. We are mostly broadcasting live action programs and recently reality shows. TIJI, CANAL J and FILLES-TV are broadcast on cable and satellite TPS/CanalSat bouquet. Apart from "traditional rights" (ie broadcasting rights), we are also looking for VOD, mobile phone rights, web sites rights. When possible, we are also open to L&M rights.

Petits Aventuriers

What programs are you looking for (genre, origin)?

TIJI: Animation 100% - France, UK, Canada, Spain, Australia, Korea.
CANAL J: Animation 80% / Live action: 20% - France, US, UK, Canada, Korea, Japan. GULLI: Animation 60% / Live Action: 40% - France, US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany. FILLES-TV: Live Action 90% / Animation 10% - US, France, UK, Canada, Germany, Latin America.

What foreign programs did you buy this year?

Tiji: "Dibo" - 52x11' - Ocon.
"Mama Mirabelle" - 52x13' - National Geographic.
"Little Princess" - 65x11' - TV Loonland.
"Rupert Follow the Magic" - 52x11' - Entertainment Rights.
"Strawberry Shortcake" - 22x45' - DIC Entertainment.

CANAL J: "Sabrina" animated series - 65x 26' - DIC; " Viva Pinata " - 52x 26' - 4 KIDS; " GX" - 52x 26' - 4 KIDS; " Dragon Booster" - 39x 26' - AAC; " Genie in the house" (co-production) - 52x 26' - MJTV.

GULLI: "Stuart Little" - 13x 26' - Sony Pictures; "Bibi Blocksberg" - 26x 26' - KIDDINX; "Pokemon" - 74x 26' - 4 KIDS; "Pink Panther & show" - 121x 7' - MGM; "At the end of my leash" - 13x 26' - AAC; "Step by step" - 160x 26' - Warner; "Serious Jungle"/ "Desert"/ "Arctic" - 18x 26' - All 3 Media.

FILLES-TV: "South of Nowhere" - 52x 26' - MTV Networks; "Blue Water High" - 78x 26' - Southern Star; "Sleep Over Club" - 52x 26' - Southern Star; "Degrassi" - 119x 26' - AAC; "Nana" - 50x 26' - Moonscoop; "Secret lifes" - 44x 45' - Southern Star; "Instant Star" - 39x 26' - AAC; "Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency" - 31x 45' - Fremantle; "Style her famous" - 20x 30' - E! Entertainment; "Test drive my girlfriend" - 8x 26' - Target.

What national programs did you buy this year?

TIJI: " Les copains de la foret " - 52x 13' -TF1 International ; " Docteur Dog " (co-production) - 52x 12' - Moonscoop; " Ozieboo " (co-production) - 78x6'30'' - Cyber Group; " Les devinettes de Reinette " - 52x 3' - Double Metre; " Santa Junior " (co-production) - 52x 13' - Alphanim. CANAL J: " Franky Snow " (co-production) - 52x 13' - Toon Factory; " Spirou & Fantasio " (co-production) - 26x 26' - Dupuis; " Skyland " (co-production) - 26x 26' - Method Film; " Code Lyoko " (co-production) - 97x 26' - Moonscoop; " Chasseur de dragons " - 52x 26' - Futurikon. GULLI: " Toupou " - 26x 26' - Xilam; " Raymond " (co-production) - 26x 6' - " Everybody On Deck "; " Lucky Luke " - 52x 26' - Mediatoon; " Petit Vampire " - 52x 13' - Alphanim; " L'instit "   - 24x 90' - AB DA. FILLES-TV: " Les vacances de l'amour " - 80x 50' - AB DA.

What are your acquisition plans?

We wish to strengthen the difference between our 3 thematic cable/satellite channels, for each kid to find the best TV Channel for him, according to his age and the kind of program he wishes to watch. We are opening Gulli on DTT aimed on family audience, and especially during evenings, for kids to watch the channel alone on daytime, and together with their parents in the evening. We are more and more thematic in each channel, and try to offer our viewers a range of programs for them specifically: we try to be a niche for our viewers, and to find new ideas, new formats to offer them. We are very open to broadcast programs on our mode of broadcasting, but also to relay them on our web sites, press magazines when possible, and we are also open to L&M rights for some strong properties: we try to use all the specificities of the Lagardere Group (broadcasting/editing/L&M). VOD rights are also very important in our acquisition plans, as we are on VOD platforms in France, and wish to launch our own platform.