Lagardère Active pockets kids VOD series

French broadcaster Lagardère Active has acquired a preschool series based on the Badanamu online property that comes packaged with animated shorts and 70 songs.

Lagardère has bought linear and non-linear rights for French-speaking Europe and Africa to the 52x8mins Badanamu animated series, which is produced is Ultra-HD.

The animated shorts that first popularised the brand with children and songs aimed at encouraging STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are also included, and the content will play on the linear TiJi and Gulli channels and Lagardère’s YouTube channels.

To date, Badanamu has clocked up more than 1.3 billion views online. Its producer, the LA- and Seoul-based Calm Island, has invested more than US$10 million in the brand to create online songs, interactive books, minigames, a multiplayer game, story and picture books, and a YouTube channel with 340,000 subscribers to date.

Calm Island and Leslie Nelson Cressy’s Paris-based brand management and distribution firm, LNC Media, scored the deal with Lagardère.

“Lagardere Active’s TV hub is proud to welcome this successful new licence,” said Caroline Cocahaux, managing director of France and international for Lagardere Active TV and CEO of Gulli. “It is a chance for us to develop this property in every French-speaking territory in Europe and in Africa.

“With our powerful brands, Gulli & TiJi, we will implement a real 360 strategy. Badanamu will air on TV, in the digital area, on sharing platforms and finally on social media. Our goal is to make this edutainment TV show as popular as possible.”