Banijay Kids & Family will be among the exhibitors at the upcoming Cobrandz. Annick Bizet, New Business and Strategic Alliances Director, shared the 2023 projects and her opinion about the French children’s content market.
What’s new for Banijay Kids & Family in 2023?
Annick Bizet, New Business and Strategic Alliances Director, Banijay Kids & Family
Last year we grew our footprint with the addition of two exciting new labels to our family (Kindle Entertainment and Movimenti Production) and celebrated great successes with our shows including Zodiak Kids & Family France’s preschool comedy series Mumfie, which won the Best Pre-School TV Series at the 2022 Cartoons on the Bay Pulcinella Awards; and mystery live-action, sci-fi Silverpoint, from Zodiak Kids & Family Productions UK, which was nominated for two BAFTA Children & Young People awards: Best Scripted and Best Writer (Lee Walters). With a strong content pipeline of new IP and established brands, I’m sure that 2023 will see us build on these performances.
One of the iconic franchises in our catalogue, Totally Spies!, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, will be a focus of our efforts, with several celebrations around the series already planned. We have audiobooks to be released in collaboration with our partner Bookwire on all streaming platforms (Apple, Deezer, Spotify, Amazon etc…), and an exciting new deal with publisher Dupuis, which will offer a world premiere of the series as a webtoon.
We believe these two projects will be enjoyed by fans of the series globally, across Europe, the United States and South America. Brazil alone accounts for billions of streams of the series, proof of the international appeal of our beloved trio of spies!
We are gearing up for the launch of the 7th season of the series in close collaboration with our partners, M6/GULLI (France) and Discovery Kids LatAm. Scheduled for release in 2024, the new season will feature the Spies in a new city, facing all-new villains. Of course, the show will retain its DNA, which fans have fallen in love with, but being a young woman today is so different to what it was 20 years ago, and we will reflect that.
How is the French children’s content market evolving today?
MUMFIE © 2023. Zodiak Kids & Family France – Animoka. All rights reserved
Using the example of children’s books, in 2021 more than 74.2 million children’s books were sold – well above expectations for an industry that is often presented as losing momentum. While lockdown has had a positive effect on book sales, the numbers remain significant to-date. Children’s books can count on a diversification of creations and therefore sources of growth: the French market is not limited to a few flagship productions such as Asterix, but can also count on numerous contemporary titles such as Mortèle Adèle.
Audiovisual production and streaming platforms have grasped the importance of the children’s content market: series and edutainment content for children is flourishing and many of the titles offered are French. Indeed, French animation has also established itself as one of the major players at an international level: France is the 3rd country in the world and the 1st European country in terms of the volume of animated series being commissioned, with 65 programmes.
In all these fields, French creation for young people remains extremely rich, varied, and diverse. There is a market appetite for brands with content that does not hesitate to move away from books or cartoons and offers immersive and original experiences for children.
It is difficult to predict how the licensing market will fare in France in 2023, but we can bet it will continue to be a robust and agile industry that will grow and adapt to new challenges, technologies and media.
Curated by Andrea De Amicis
