News round-up: Canal+ & RAI team for ‘The Crunchers’; ScreenSkills predicts HETV spend growth; Paramount+ debuts Putin inner circle doc  

The Crunchers

Canal+ & RAI team for ‘The Crunchers’

French broadcaster Canal+ and Italian public broadcaster RAI have jointly commissioned The Crunchers, a new 52 x 11-minute 2D animated comedy series targeting children aged 7+.

Paris-based children’s entertainment content distribution company Kids First has picked up the global rights to series, which will air on Canal+ in France and Poland, and on RAI Gulp and RAI Play in Italy in Fall 2023.

The Crunchers is created by Cédric Stephan and Aurélien Bouillon and tells the story of a family of Trolls who are forced to leave their home in the countryside and move to the big city.

It is developed by French studio Je Suis Bien Content. Currently in production, it is being co-produced by Torino-based studio Animato, which presold the series to RAI, and by Bulgarian studio Zmei, which presold the show to its national public broadcaster BNT.

ScreenSkills predicts HETV spend growth

UK industry training body ScreenSkills has published new research predicting that UK high-end TV and film production spending is likely to grow to between £7.07bn ($8.66bn) and £7.66bn by 2025.

As a result, said the research, around 15,130 to 20,770 additional crew will be required to meet the increased demand, while by 2025, training existing and new workforce will need annual investment of £95.1m to £104.3m

The estimated economic return, however, is expected to be more than 15 times the cost of the training investment.

Paramount+ debuts Putin inner circle doc

Paramount+ will next week debut a feature documentary about the women whose lives were enriched by incredible wealth by marrying people within Russian president Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

Blink Films and See It Now Studios have produced the 1 x 90-minute Secrets Of The Oligarch Wives, which debuts on the streamer next week, on 28 June.

The women partners of the billionaires who put President Vladimir Putin in charge risk everything by revealing the secrets of staying in the iron-willed dictator’s good graces and the price some have paid for speaking out.