TV Kids NATPE 2011

NATPEEDITIONTop Buyers

Nickelodeon’s Cyma Zarghamiwww.tvkids.ws THE MAGAZINE OF CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING JANUARY 2011

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The boutique Canadian outfit Bejuba! Entertainmenthas made its hallmark one of quality, fun, creator-drivenprogramming. Its offerings for NATPE are no excep-tion. “We are coming with three perfect preschoolprograms that are not competing with each other,” saysSandrine Pechels de Saint Sardos, the VP of programdistribution at Bejuba!“Stella & Sam is a classic one, Mr. Moon is ‘out of this

world,’ The Hive is an exquisite and very unique seriesabout cute bees.” There’s also Fizzy’s Lunch Lab, whichfocuses on nutrition and cooking and is “very appealingfor the 6- to 12-year-olds,” notes de Saint Sardos. “Andthe Sokator 442 movie will fulfill any soccer fan.” The75-minute film, done in 2D with effects, is a multiplat-form franchise for Bejuba!, with an online property cur-rently available and a TV game show in development.

• The Hive• Mr. Moon• Stella & Sam• Fizzy’s Lunch Lab• Sokator 442 movie

Bejuba! Entertainment

• TaKaT the Dog• Robot Chipa• 4 Angies• Let’s Play with Boomchiki Boom!• Edebits

Edebé Audiovisual Licensing

One of the goals for Edebé in attending NATPE is to widenthe reach of its animated series in Latin America, both fortitles already in the market, such as Edebits, and for newshows. Highlighted offerings include TaKaT the Dog, RobotChipa, 4 Angies and Let’s Play with Boomchiki Boom!“Licensing and co-production are additional businessopportunities for us, too,” notes Ivan Agenjo, sales director atEdebé. Agenjo believes that Edebé can offer the kids’ mar-ket programming that is both entertaining and educational.He says, “In a world where kids spend lots of hours watch-ing TV, we provide them with funny, interesting content thatprovides them values and laughs at the same time.” He alsobelieves that NATPE provides a solid venue for presentingthis content to new clients. “In general, NATPE is a goodplatform for our products to enter into the Latin and NorthAmerican territories.”

www.edebeaudiovisual.com

4 Angies

“Our programs show a perfectbalance between entertainmentand education for children andyouth.” —Ivan Agenjo

Ricardo Seguin GuisePublisherAnna Carugati

EditorMansha DaswaniExecutive EditorKristin BrzoznowskiManaging EditorMatthew Rippetoe

Production and DesignDirector

Simon WeaverOnline DirectorPhyllis Q. BusellArt DirectorCesar Suero

Sales and MarketingManager

Erica Antoine-ColeBusiness Affairs Manager

Alyssa MenardSales and Marketing

Assistant

Ricardo Seguin GuisePresidentAnna Carugati

Executive VP and Group Editorial DirectorMansha DaswaniVP of StrategicDevelopment

TV Kids© 2011 WSN INC.1123 Broadway, #1207New York, NY 10010

Phone: (212) 924-7620

Fax: (212) 924-6940

Website: www.tvkids.ws

IN THIS ISSUEShopping OdysseyChannels around theworld are looking toacquired fare to refreshtheir schedules. 8

InterviewNickelodeon’s Cyma Zarghami 12

“I am going [to NATPE] toreach the U.S. Hispanic and Latin American markets. I don’t want to forgetmy Asian buyers, too.”

—Sandrine Pechels de Saint Sardos

Mr. Moon

54 World Screen 1/11

www.bejuba.com

4 TV KIDS

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One of the top priorities for Mondo TV Spain at NATPEis the 52x13-minute animated series Puppy in My Pocket.“Our main target is to have agreements for Puppy in MyPocket with the main key players in Latin America,” saysgeneral manager Maria Bonaria Fois. Also on the slate arePlaytime Buddies, which can help teach children aboutpotential careers and interests, and Angel’s Friends, centeredon themes of adventure, friendship and love. Skewing moretoward boys are Power Buggz and Virus Attack. In the26x26-minute Power Buggz, a mysterious explosion in thelab of renowned scientist Dr. Kristoff Dralda sets off a chainreaction that transforms the insect specimens he’s beenstudying into something more, as they become smarter,faster and stronger. The 52x13-minute Virus Attack tells ofthe adventures of a group of five teenagers who discoverthey have special powers they can use to save the Earthfrom a powerful alien virus.

• Puppy in My Pocket• Playtime Buddies• Power Buggz• Angel’s Friends• Virus Attack

Mondo TV Spain

The highest-rated series on Sprout in the U.S. is Noodleand Doodle, which is already set for a second season,slated to launch in September 2011. The preschool series provides live action, animation and

puppetry in each episode. It’s hosted by Sean, Sprout’s co-host of The Sunny Side Up Show, and features arts, craftsand healthy recipes inspired by real preschoolers’ experi-ences. The show is being offered through JBMW Media. “[Our goal is to] sell Noodle and Doodle to like-

minded distribution partners all around the world andwork together in making Noodle and Doodle a popularglobal brand,” says Jennifer Monier-Williams, thepresident of JBMW Media, noting the show’s “richaccompanying website for all broadcast partners.”A Spanish version of Noodle and Doodle is ready for

launch, and Monier-Williams says another priority ofhers for the market will be to seek out local formatproduction partners for adaptations. JBMW Media isalso on the lookout for ancillary rights partners onthe property.

• Noodle and Doodle

Sprout

Noodle and Doodle

“Noodle and Doodlepromotes co-viewing and co-doing for children andtheir caretakers.”

—Jennifer Monier-Williams

www.sproutonline.com/noodle-and-doodle

“[These shows] come with astrong licensing and merchandisingplan and are suitable for any TV channel.”

—Maria Bonaria Fois

6 TV KIDS


Power Buggz

Puppy in My Pocket

www.mondotvspain.es

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8 TV KIDS

Children’s channels around theworld are looking to acquired fareto refresh their schedules.

By Kristin Brzoznowski

ShoppingOdyssey


Slowly but surely, it appears that thechildren’s television business is pulling out of the reces-sion. Channels are starting to commission again, and asdistributors witnessed at a healthy MIP Junior, buyersare willing to open their pocketbooks, eager to getsome new shows on their schedules. Acquisitions, infact, have picked up in all genres, from animation to liveaction, for all age groups, from preschool to teens.There are new players buying from the market as

well. One of the newest networks, The Hub,rebranded from Discovery Kids last fall, is availablein some 61 million households across the U.S. A joint venture of Discovery Communi-

cations and Hasbro, the channel’s launch slateincluded The 99, Family Game Night, Dan Vs.,G.I. Joe: Renegades and Pound Puppies. The Hub has been able to tap into the existing brand port-

folio of its parent company Hasbro to line up original pro-gramming, which represents 25 percent of its overall schedule.The rest is culled from third-party product, with acquisitionsthat include In the Night Garden, picked up from BBC World-wide; Cosmic Quantum Ray, produced by Moonscoop; AtomicBetty, from Skywriter Media & Entertainment Group; and TheJim Henson Company’s Fraggle Rock. To fill the schedule in the future, Donna Ebbs, the senior VP

of programming for The Hub, says, the channel is “open todeveloping programs with any legitimate production entity.”And as for acquisitions, Ebbs says, “We are keenly interested inthe boys’ animated action space and are always looking for greatco-viewing programming opportunities in prime time.”

STAYING IN TOONIt’s animated comedy, not action, that Canada’s TELETOON hasits eye on as it aims for co-viewing in prime time, according to

Caroline Tyre, the channel’s director ofprogramming. “We are focused on comedy for boys ages 6 to 11,but we don’t want to exclude girls and parents,” she says. “Theperfect show for us would make a 10-year-old boy laugh andalso be girl- and parent-inclusive. A perfect example of thiswould be the punchy, high-octane hit comedy series Johnny Test.” For TELETOON, 60 percent of the total schedule (6 p.m. to

midnight) is made up of original Canadian programming, andso is 60 percent of the prime-time schedule (4 p.m. to 10p.m.). The rest consists of acquisitions, Tyre explains, whichhave included Ben 10: Ultimate Alien; Star Wars: The Clone Wars;Batman: The Brave and the Bold; The Super Hero Squad Show;and Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. As for where she looks when buying for this part of the slate,

Tyre says, “TELETOON has established great relationshipswith independent producers across Canada, as well as abroad.We work with studios as well as larger independent distribu-

Moonscoop’s CosmicQuantum Ray

on The Hub.

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9TV KIDS

tors, from all over the globe. TELETOON also attends mar-kets such as MIPCOM, MIPTV, the L.A. Screenings, Banff andOttawa International Animation Festival.”The channel’s spending on programming steadily increases

every year, Tyre notes. “We are putting a real emphasis onTELETOON at Night/TELETOON la Nuit, a programmingblock in English and French, respectively, for older teens andadults. It’s a competitive market out there, with [other channels]trying to buy the same programs that we target, such as The Simp-sons, Futurama, etc. And with the addition of a second channel,TELETOON Retro, our programming needs are even higher.”This has led TELETOON to increase its 2011 acquisitions

budget. “Kids’ and adult television is a very competitive land-scape for eyeballs, and we want to be offering the best enter-tainment and value to our audience,” says Tyre. “This doesn’tcome cheap.”With 25 years of experience and know how in the kids’ pro-

gramming industry, France’s Canal J divides its grid fifty-fiftybetween acquisitions and commissions. Though the Frenchnetwork is restructuring its schedule, it does plan to keep thesame buying budget for acquisitions as in years past, accordingto Julia Tenret, Canal J’s director of acquisitions. Tenret says she often looks to trade magazines dedicated

to the kids’ industry, as well as markets such as NATPE, forfinding out what’s new in the programming arena. Currently,Tenret is looking for more shows geared toward 8- to 12-year-olds, both for boys and girls, but notably game-show for-mats for this age group. She’s also keen to pick up animatedand live-action series in the categories of adventure and slap-stick comedy. Tenret further points to TV movies as an areashe’s actively buying from.

A WIDE NETThe acquisitions budget at Turner Broadcasting in Europe,the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) must satisfy the needs ofa number of international channels. Boomerang caters topreschool audiences and their families, whileCartoon Network skews older, ages 6 to 12,and tends to attract more boys. Also aimedat the 6-to-12 set, Boing operates as afree-to-air channel in Italy and Spainand as a pay-TV channel and free-to-airblock in France. Cartoonito, mean-while, broadcasts as a preschool ser -vice in the U.K. The ratio of commissioned shows

to in-house programming for eachof these services varies widely, accord-ing to Cecilia Persson, the VP of acquisitions andco-productions for EMEA at Turner Broadcasting. Onaverage, Persson says, 30 percent of the schedules consistof acquisitions. “We prebought Pink Panther and Pals from MGM for

Boomerang a couple of years ago and it launched acrossEMEA [in 2010] and is doing very well for us,” she saysof her recent buys. “Angelo Rules, from CAKE Enter-tainment, launched in October across our channelsand is another strong performer.” Persson says she does most of her shopping at

events such as Cartoon Forum, Annecy, MIPTV andMIPCOM, but also takes direct pitches from producers

and distributors. She points out that the budgets for Turner’schannels have increased over the last year, and that theyshould remain steady for 2011.“In the short term, we have a strong lineup of content coming

up across all our channels, but we are actively looking for origi-nal comedy animation for Cartoon Network,” Persson says.Though the channel is well served by the pipeline of con-tent from Cartoon Network U.S., Persson notes that she isalways keen to add more animation with strong character-based, story-driven comedy or action-adventure. “ForBoomerang we’re looking for new ideas that complementBoomerang’s vast library of timeless animated classics. ForCartoonito…we’re looking for warm and entertaining ideasthat will encourage 2- to 6-year-olds to laugh out loud.”Just as Persson must cast a wide net to fill the various chan-

nels’ needs, Germany’s KI.KA also has a broad buying remit toserve its wide target audience. “KI.KA offers programming forchildren up to 13 years old, and beyond that,” explains SebastianDebertin, the head of fiction, acquisition and co-productionfor the ARD/ZDF children’s channel. “This is quite a hetero-geneous target group, composed of small children, elementary-school students, and teenagers, whose requirements can beabsolutely divergent in terms of television use, [connectingwith their peers] and, of course, content.”

ROLE MODELSThe live-action programming on KI.KA features stories takendirectly from the young viewers’ everyday lives, explainsDebertin. “The shows deal with subjects of social relevance,feature problems and pleasures that reflect kids’ everyday livesand offer positive role models.” He adds, “Highly successful

animation on KI.KA is often basedon popular books, thus reflecting

high aesthetic value andintelligent storytelling.”

KI.KA has beenproducing

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Welcome, new pals:Canal Panda, a leaderin the Portuguesepreschool arena, hasfound a strong following for Pocoyo.

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more of its own programming than it has in the past, “but westill also acquire a lot!,” says Debertin. Recent acquisitionsinclude My Life Me from Classic Media and Majority Rulesfrom Entertainment One. While Debertin’s buying budget decreased last year, he

hopes to up his spending for 2011. “We are looking for inno-vative and strong properties for the 6-to-9 demo.” He wouldlike animation with a slightly younger skew and live-actionprograms for audiences 9-plus, to complement shows likeZDF’s H2O: Just Add Water, NDR’s The Peppercorns and thechannel’s own KRIMI.DE. “We look for shows that also bring interactivity,” Debertin

continues. “A property’s international feel plus its strong rele-vance for German kids are crucial points in finding appropriatecontent. Fresh story ideas and design that appeals to a mass audi-ence are important, too.” Debertin also takes into account a pro-gram’s potential for sustainable brand-value and a long shelf life. “To sum it up: high quality is a must,” he says. “So interna-

tionally we will be mainly open to live action for the tweensand preteens, as well as to quality animation series for the 6-to 9-year-old viewers.”Canal Panda of Portugal needs to find programming for a

much narrower demographic. The preschool service offerscontent exclusively for the 2-to-7 demographic, with ani-mated series dubbed into Portuguese. “We cater to boys and girls and also to parents,” states Isabel

Mimoso, the channel director for Canal Panda and its sisterservice, Panda BIGGS. “Parents are key for us. As our contentis nonviolent, parents get the guarantee that with Canal Pandatheir children are always watching programming that is appro-priate for them. They feel safe.”The lion’s share is acquired content, with only 10 percent of

the whole channel roster produced in-house. Mimoso mainly

looks to the U.K., Canada and France for Canal Panda’s pro-gramming, but says that she’s open to exploring other territo-ries. Currently on her shopping list are soft-learning series,edutainment programming and series with “adventure andfun” for those under 6. Mimoso stresses that because of thechannel’s preschool target, educational content is always at thetop of her mind. “We have the obligation to help childrendevelop their talents and social skills and open up their world.” Mimoso also buys for the older-skewing service Panda

BIGGS. The relatively young channel (launched in 2009) isaimed at boys 8 to 14. There are five different strands she shopsfor within this channel’s schedule: animation for kids up to 8;animation for kids up to 10; live-action series; magazine seriesand movies.

NEW KID ON THE BLOCKABC3 hit the air in December 2009 and quickly becamethe number one destination for Australian school-aged chil-dren, according to Barbara Uecker, the channel’s head ofprogramming and acquisitions. With an audience rangingfrom 6 to 15 years old, ABC3 is all about providing pro-gramming that “combines an Australian perspective with aworld view,” says Uecker. “The channel speaks with a distinctly Australian voice,” she

adds. This voice carries across varied genres such as docu-mentary, reality, wildlife, news and current affairs, animation,comedy and drama. Within this diverse schedule, 25 percent of last year’s grid was

newly commissioned productions, 15 percent representedacquired Australian programs and the rest was acquired frominternational suppliers. In its first year of operation, ABC3 pickedup Fresh TV’s Total Drama franchise from CAKE, the CBBCwildlife show Deadly 60 from BBC Worldwide and Samka’s


10 TV KIDS

Shaking things up: Fresh TV’s Total Drama Island, distributed by CAKE, has been sold around the world to a variety of differentbroadcasters, including ABC3 in Australia, where the series regularly tops the network’s most-watched programs.


I.N.K.: Invisible Network of Kids from PGS Entertainment,among others. Australian acquisitions included Dex Hamilton:Alien Entomologist, Round the Twist, Mortified and Misery Guts.“In 2011, we expect Australian content to exceed 50 percentof total program hours,” Uecker notes. Also expected to increase for next year is the channel’s buy-

ing budget, which is set for a 10-percent gain, says Uecker.“We’re constantly looking all around the world for content andattend MIPTV, MIPCOM and [other markets].”

NEW SOURCESUecker says she’s currently looking for animated series thatwill attract the upper end of the channel’s demographic, mak-ing note that “Asia is becoming a more important supplysource for animated programs.” She continues, “Comedy isalways high on our shopping list, as is boy-skewed action-adventure.And we are always interested in good factual showslike Deadly 60 (CBBC), Horrible Histories (CBBC) and theKratt brothers’ Be the Creature.” Uecker says she often has a tough time acquiring factual

fare. “We find it hard to secure sufficient outstanding con-tent in the genres of wildlife, documentary and factual enter-tainment,” she notes. Meanwhile, at Nickelodeon Asia, it’s animation that’s in

demand. Syahrizan Mansor, the director and head of creativeand content for Nickelodeon at MTV Networks SoutheastAsia, points to the action-adventure genre in particular. “Weare also interested in TV movies and animation series that havebeen produced and developed in Asia, targeted at girlsbetween 5 to 8 years old,” Mansor adds. Mansor regularly attends international markets through-

out the year, which give her a chance to see what’s new in thekids’ arena. “MIPTV, MIPCOM and Asia Television Forum(ATF) are key trade shows for us. They allow us to identify

trends and strengthen our network relationships. At ATF, werenew ties with international program sellers as well as con-tent providers and developers in Asia.”For Mansor, keeping up on the latest trends in programming

is essential for ensuring the channel’s continued success. “Weare constantly fine-tuning our schedule to ensure Nickelodeonremains the leading entertainment destination for young view-ers,” she says. “We also make it a point to reach kids on multipleplatforms and make sure that all the content they love is easilyaccessible to view at their own time.”

Well crafted: CCI Entertainment’s arts-and-crafts show Artzooka! has traveled acrossIndia, Korea and Southeast Asia via Nickelodeon Asia.

The cool crew: ClassicMedia’s My Life Me isamong the top performingacquired titles on the German kids’ channel KI.KA.

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For 30 years, Nickelodeon has been connecting with kids,tracking their tastes and lifestyles and as a result offeringeducational shows for preschoolers, cutting-edge ani-mation for school-age kids and live-action shows fortweens. In the process, it has created some of the mostsuccessful franchises in children’s television, includingDora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants andiCarly. Under Cyma Zarghami, the president of Nick-elodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group, the children’schannel has become a leading destination for young view-ers around the world on TV and online. Zarghami talksabout writing Nickelodeon’s next chapter, one thatincludes new genres and partnerships.

TV KIDS: Nickelodeon is 30 years old now. Whathave you learned about which genres fit the brand,and what types of partnerships are you looking for?ZARGHAMI: Nickelodeon is 30, and it wasabout five years ago, when we were celebratingour 25th birthday, that we decided we needed tobegin to write the next chapter of Nickelodeon’shistory, which meant where to go next and how we keepit growing. We’ve always felt that Nickelodeon can keepgetting bigger and better. We’ve done everything by our-selves for so many years, and we’ve had great success doinga lot by ourselves. But we really did think that now thetime is right to get into new genres, some new markets,and work with different people [from whom] we couldlearn some of the things that we don’t intuitively knowourselves, as creative people. And it is sometimes better topartner than it is to invent from the ground up.Our journey really began with DreamWorks Animation

when Jeffrey Katzenberg came to us and said, What if wetook some characters from his very popular movies andturned them into TV series? So we went into the develop-ment process [on the series The Penguins of Madagascar] andrealized that, Oh, there are 18 months of marketing we don’thave to do to get a show ramped up because the charactersare already well known and beloved by our audience. Andthat is always the first thing we worry about: how do weconnect with our audience, and does [a certain project] helpus connect with the audience in a better way? And thosepenguins were really well-developed characters when themovie [Madagascar] came out, so the process was a lot of funand we came out with a great show, and we’re going to bedoing another one with Kung Fu Panda.

TV KIDS:You have also partnered with Sony Music.�ZARGHAMI:We wanted to get into music because music hasalways been an important part of kids’ lives, certainly tweens’ lives.So we thought we needed a great partner to work with on music.We know how to put music into a show; we don’t necessarilyknow how to make the music to put in the show. We talked to a

bunch of different people and we found in Sony a great partnerwho brought us great talent. They went on the talent search forBig Time Rush with us. We molded the project together and itcame out really well. The music is fantastic. It’s charming, it’sfunny, it’s spot on in terms of kids’ sensibility, and the music isreally high quality and might possibly go beyond just the kids’audience, and that’s really our hope. I love the music, myself!The second project with Sony is Victorious, starring Victo-

ria Justice. She is what you call—not to be cliché—a triplethreat. She can sing, she can act and she can dance. She haspresence. She is a spectacular person, and hers is the otherproject that has music in the center.

TV KIDS: Are you also finding projects that originatedoutside the U.S.?ZARGHAMI:Yes, House of Anubis is one that [has come] thisway. We did it in Holland first, and it was a runaway successstory. And then they re-created it for the German marketand it was also a runaway success story. We thought wewould go to Liverpool to make it with a Belgian companyfor the U.K. and for the U.S. and for any other market thatwants to take it from there, so we are excited.

TV KIDS: And the Power Rangers are back!ZARGHAMI:The Power Rangers and the legendary HaimSaban! The Power Rangers was one of those programs that reallyresonated with the boy audience for many, many, many years.And it feels like at 30 years old, Nickelodeon is in a perfect posi-tion to take some of [those evergreen] properties that it couldembrace and put under its umbrella. We’re doing the PowerRangers with Haim Saban and we bought The Teenage MutantNinja Turtles, and we will be re-creating that series from scratch.


Nickelodeon’sCyma Zarghami

By Anna Carugati

12 TV KIDS

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So the shows that resonated might resonate again, and theexciting thing about being 30 is that the first Nickelodeon audi-ence is now parents of the [current] Nickelodeon audience.And there are a lot of things that will be nostalgic in the best pos-sible way for those parents that we can re-create for their kids.And we can connect with families in ways we never expected to.

TV KIDS:You will also have The Tales of Peter Rabbit, basedon Beatrix Potter’s characters.ZARGHAMI: I met Waheed Alli [the chairman of Chorion].He invited me to the House of Lords for tea. I thought I wasgoing to a restaurant called the House of Lords! Isn’t that clever![Laughs] Then I went through security and I saw the throne andhe gave us a fantastic tour. He really is a spectacular guy becausehe just wants the properties that he wants. He has a real qualitymeter about him. He worked on Olivia, which is gorgeous. Hedid Max & Ruby, which continues to be a big hit with the pre-school audience, and he has been trying to get Beatrix Potterfor a long time. When he and Frederick Warne & Co. cametogether on it, he said, “I want to do The Tales of Peter Rabbitwith Nickelodeon.” So it is a three-way partnership, and I thinkour team will do a great job with it. It should be an excitingproperty that might resonate with future generations.

TV KIDS: Nickelodeon has always been known for con-necting with children wherever they are. ZARGHAMI: Multiplatform is really important, and chil-dren are everywhere that you can imagine. Great content is atthe heart of this. If you don’t have great content, it doesn’tmatter what you do on the platforms, children aren’t going toconnect with it. SpongeBob games are going to work any-where that you put them. And the interactivity in iCarly isbased on the fact that the characters are making their ownweb show, and kids really connect with that idea. So just ask-ing kids to put their own content up online isn’t exciting.Putting it up online to be on iCarly is really exciting.We try to make sure that the content they love is finding

its way onto all of the platforms, rather than try to figureout what to do with the platforms.

We did Fred: The Movie. It was an interesting experimentbecause there have only been about two times now wheresomething from the Internet has truly crossed over to anotherplatform, and Justin Bieber is one of them and Fred might bethe other. He had so many followers online, and Brian Rob-bins made the movie and brought it to us when it was fin-ished. That was just a matter of, is it the right time and canthe combination of Fred, the beloved Internet guy, andNickelodeon together really make an impression? And itturned out to be great. Some 7.5 million people watched themovie, which was fantastic. [It was] released theatrically inthe U.K. because Pixie Lott, the girl who plays his love inter-est, Judy, is a pop phenomenon there.

TV KIDS: Nickelodeon has always considered pro-social ini-tiatives to be very important. What are the most recent ones?ZARGHAMI:We actually just reinvigorated what The BigHelp means to us. The Big Help was the first of our bigpro-social initiatives and it has a history and a lot of equity.We’ve now turned The Big Help into the umbrella forfour pillars: education, health and wellness, communityservice and the environment. Quarter by quarter, with ourtalent, we are taking on those pillars one at a time. In Sep-tember, we did the Worldwide Day of Play again, and wedid it globally. There were a lot of countries involved. Weturned off Nickelodeon for three hours to let kids knowhow important it was to get outside and play. We had a lotof talent come and participate. We were live from NewYork City this year and we had a lot of fun.We did Beyond the Backpack, which is a fantastic initia-

tive about school readiness. Marian Wright Edelman fromthe Children’s Defense Fund, as well as the PTA [ParentTeacher Association], are both huge supporters of the initia-tive. We are really trying to give parents the tools to get theirkids ready to go to school, because if they aren’t ready toget there, they are going to fail. Marian Wright Edelmanbelieves that illiteracy is one of the biggest crises of our[times]. She was actually quoted as saying that now that Dorais on the case, she feels much better!

School days: Nickelodeon hasstepped up itsinternational partnerships, launching a U.S. version of the Studio100 formatHouse of Anubis.


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