English Entertainment
National Geographic TV Intl inks deal for kid’s show with broadcasters
MUMBAI: National Geographic Television International (NGTI) has announced a raft of new deals for its festive family special – Toot & Puddle: I’ll Be Home for Christmas.
Based on the Holly Hobbie book of the same name, the show has been licensed to broadcasters including ARD and Ki.Ka in Germany, Nickelodeon in the UK and Australia, YLE Finland, TV2 Norway, DR1 Denmark and ATV Hong Kong.
NGTI head of kids’ sales Karen Vermeulen comments, “In Toot & Puddle, Holly Hobbie has created very charming characters – and they definitely succeeded in charming a number of buyers at their first outing at Mipcom this year!
“This is the first programme out of the four in production from National Geographic Kids’ Entertainment to deliver, and has been tremendously well received. Kids is a relatively new area of business for NGTI but the strong heritage of the National Geographic brand means that buyers know to expect top quality kids’ programming that both entertains and excites kids to explore the world around them.”
Toot & Puddle: I’ll Be Home for Christmas tells the tale of two piglet pals who must overcome severe winter weather, cancelled flights and other unexpected delays in order to spend Christmas together. Targeted at families and kids aged 3-8 it is produced by National Geographic Kids’ Entertainment, in association Warner Home Video.
English Entertainment
Ellison takes his Paramount-Warner Bros case straight to theater owners
The Skydance chief goes to CinemaCon with promises and a skeptical crowd waiting
CALIFORNIA: David Ellison strode into a room packed with thousands of cinema owners and executives at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday and did something rather bold: he looked them in the eye and asked them to trust him.
The chief executive of Paramount Skydance vowed that his company would release a minimum of 30 films a year if regulators greenlight its proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has made theater owners deeply, and loudly, nervous.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison told the crowd. “Once we combine with Warner Bros, we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios.”
It was a confident pitch. Whether it landed is another matter. Cinema operators have already called on regulators to block the deal, and scepticism in the room was hardly concealed.
Ellison pushed back by pointing to recent form. Paramount, born from the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media last August, plans to release 15 films this year, nearly double the eight it put out in 2025. Progress, he argued, was already underway.
He also threw theater owners a bone they have long been chasing: all films, he pledged, would run exclusively in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days, drawing applause from a crowd that has spent years fighting for exactly that commitment across the industry.
“People can speculate all they want,” Ellison said, “but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment. And we’ll show you we mean it.”
Fine words. The regulators, however, will have the last one.
