TV Kids Mondo TV's 50th Birthday

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OCTOBER 2015

Mondo TV’s 50th Birthday

SPECIAL REPORT

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50Years of MondoTV

Orlando Corradi

he team at Mondo TV likes to refer to the company as “The Dream Factory.” The tagline speaks to the spirit with which Orlando Corradi founded the outfit five decades ago and grew it into one of Europe’s largest producers and distributors of animated content.

Corradi initially targeted the emerging interest in Japanese animated series from European broadcasters. “My father, back in 1965, started the business as a distribution

company introducing the Italian market to the most famous Japanese manga series— which are still famous today and on the air in Italy on many channels,” says Matteo Corradi, who runs Mondo TV as CEO, while his father continues to serve as chairman.

“Generations of kids grew up watching those animated series. From there he started this marvelous, creative, smart Dream Factory of his.”

A major step forward for Mondo TV came in the early ’90s, when the company began co-producing properties with Italian broadcaster RAI. Since then, Mondo TV has produced and co-produced some 1,600 episodes of animated content, plus more than 75 feature-length specials, including theatrical releases. In 2000, Mondo TV was listed on the Italian stock exchange, paving the way for even more expansion.

Matteo Corradi says he has learned much from his father about running an animation powerhouse. “On the managerial side, being decisive and courageous in taking certain tough steps,” he says on one major lesson.

“Also being humble, honest, fair and never greedy when sitting at the table with partners. Creativity and intuition are things my father has always had, but were not easy for me to learn. I really leave the creative decisions to our internal team.”

Today, in addition to its Rome headquarters, Mondo TV has operations in France, Spain and Switzerland and is active across the production, distribution, licensing and merchandising and publishing sectors.

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HIGHLIGHTS YooHoo & Friends One day in peaceful Yootopia, garbage starts to fall from the sky. YooHoo and friends board a spacecraft built by Roodee to investigate the waste meteors. They discover that the garbage has been thrown away by all of the planets. Ellie, the robot Roodee invented, tells YooHoo and friends about the Recycling Planet, which is the only key to getting rid of all the space trash and making the universe clean again.

Sissi the Young Empress Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth loves animals and her large family. She looks like many other girls, yet she is a free spirit and a princess, nicknamed Sissi. One day, the mother of the Emperor calls on Sissi’s sister to marry her son. But Emperor Franz is dazzled by Sissi instead, beginning one of the most romantic stories of all time. Torn between her home at Possi Castle and the Schönbrunn Palace, Sissi has trouble following the rules of court and earning the love of her future mother-inlaw. But even in hard times, she can rely on Franz and his great love.

Bug Rangers The story revolves around a group of best friends—Squiggz, Cosmo and Flutter—who spend their time buggin’ on down the boardwalk of life.

For this trio, every day is the first day of summer and every night is filled with carnival lights and excitement. Each episode is loaded with butt-skidding action and lightly spiced, silly humor that speaks directly to the show’s 4-to-9 target age group. Any lessons our bugs learn along the way are subtly and humorously woven into the fabric of our stories rather than clobbered over our viewers’ heads. That’s because kids, first and foremost, still need to be kids—even if they are bugs!

Adventures in Duckport Features the original Suzy’s Zoo character set, which includes the duck Suzy Ducken and her friends Jack Quacker, Penelope O’Quinn, Corky Turtle and more. The series is targeted to ages 4 to 8 and follows the fun adventures of these adorable characters in which they interact with and show respect and love to the elder members of their community. Suzy, Jack, Penelope, Corky and all their friends will do their utmost to help their elderly neighbors, even if they end up in a pickle when doing so!

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Eddie Is a Yeti A new property targeted to children ages 6 to 12, this animated short-form series follows the adventures of Eddie the yeti and his best friend, Polly. The world isn’t ready for yetis yet, so Eddie constantly has to be in disguise.

Secret Wings Set on the shimmering ocean world of Glimmer, the series follows the adventures of Poppy and her friends as they discover their secret identities as the winged princesses of Pollen Island. The friends discover the ancient “Wingredients book” and must renew its power by restoring balance to the fragile ecology of the islands on which they live. Through their newly discovered wings, each girl has a unique talent based on the natural abilities of her associated insect. They must follow clues, solve riddles and outwit the mean and arrogant Lavender Vespa to save Pollen Island. They will also discover the power of teamwork, talent, tenacity and friendship.

Kasslan & Majid These two shows are being co-produced with Abu Dhabi Media. Mondo TV has a deal with the Middle Eastern media company for a total of nine animated series to be made over the next three years. Kasslan and Majid are based on successful comic-book properties.

Cuby Zoo This 52x11-minute animated TV series is about cube-shaped animal characters. They appear to be ordinary children’s toys, but when the nearby humans are away they come to life to play and explore. They are kindhearted and sometimes mischievous creatures that play a vital but anonymous role in keeping the world in balance. They are custodians of our children’s happiness and also sometimes even guardians of our very civilization itself.

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Matteo Corradi Matteo Corradi inherited the CEO mantle from his father, Orlando, in 2012. Co-productions, branded properties and pursuing opportunities with digital platforms are among his priorities as the company marks its 50th year in business.

TV KIDS: You have a number of co-production deals with companies for series based on existing brands.

CORRADI: This has been a very important business model lately, since there is less risk than inventing a new brand from scratch. However, we are still developing and producing our own properties, such as Partidei, Beast Keeper and Cuore. Our co-production partners are not small creative companies, hence the brands we have introduced and showcased during the past five years have always been successful with great sales. At MIPTV 2015 we introduced to the market YooHoo & Friends, our partnership with Aurora on their famous toy brand. In fall 2016 we are together bringing a new 3D CGI 52x11minute format of YooHoo & Friends.

This MIPCOM we shall unveil four new shows with different partners from around the globe. The four new concepts, featuring different stories and animation styles, will appeal to all kinds of channels, including public broadcasters wanting educational messages and values, commercial networks and digital platforms.

TV KIDS: What’s driving the gains at Mondo TV? CORRADI: It is well known that our company has been listed on the Italian stock exchange since 2000. Lately we noticed the increase of our stock price in the market, which is a good sign for a medium-sized production company like ours. This is purely a financial evaluation, though. There are other indicators of our suc-

cess. We have not missed any event around the globe lately, from Licensing Expo to Toy Fair to media conferences, and our reputation has given us the opportunity to sit at the table with big players in the worlds of toys and broadcasting to discuss how we can collaborate with them.

We have been placing more emphasis on the activities of our international sales team, with members traveling to visit clients in every single part of the globe. In some territories we represent and sell not only our own catalogue, but also third-party titles. In the Middle East we represent 80 percent of the Studio 100 catalogue, all of Nippon’s classic animation, the Turner kids’ catalogue and successful properties like Nutri Ventures.

The production arm is an important part of our main business, but our strength lately has been in selling and maximizing our offers to our clients.

TV KIDS: What opportunities are you seeing for the exploitation of your back catalogue?

CORRADI: Our catalogue today is around 900 hours of series and movies, all available with an English version.

The big opportunity in the last three years has been the boom in digital media and new ways of watching TV. What is unique about Mondo TV is that we have, for almost all of our series, dubbed versions in French, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Arabic, Turkish, Russian and Greek, among other languages. Having these versions inhouse, available immediately for delivery to all our clients, is a major asset. We also have several of what we’re calling “Classic” titles, with characters such as Robin Hood, Snow White, Cinderella and Zorro, and these series still sell well for us today.

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