Dealmakers


NIGEL PICKARD Chief executive, MEAA/UK, family and kids, Zodiak


ming in 2006, it was a clear sign that the company was serious about build- ing its kids’ slate. Although known to many for his previous stint as ITV director of programmes, in Pickard’s previous life, he launched CBBC and CBeebies while controller of kids at the BBC. Ironically, his biggest headache at


W CAREER


2006 Joins RDF and stays on through merger with Zodiak 2003 Rejoins ITV as director of programmes, responsible for output including The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent 2000 Becomes controller of BBC Children’s, overseeing the launch of CBBC and CBeebies 1998 Becomes controller of children’s and youth for ITV 1986 Starts working in children’s TV developing and producing shows before becoming TVS controller of children’s and family


the BBC was CiTV’s Saturday morning show SMTV: Live – a franchise he had launched during a previous stint at the commercial broadcaster. Five years on, RDF is part of Zodiak


and Pickard (with a new, flashier title) oversees a busy slate of shows. Among these are BBC pre-school hit Waybu- loo and the recently launched Tic Toc House, for which he has high hopes: “We had three broadcasters interested in it and decided to go with Nickelo- deon, which is lining up the show for a global launch, including the US, on Nick Jr during 2012.” In its new expanded form, Zodiak


also has a mass of French kids’ and family content from Marathon (Totally Spies, Gormiti) and Adventure Line Productions – and Pickard hasn’t wasted any time in looking at how this might be made to work even harder. A classic case in point is ALP’s


adventure format Fort Boyard, which is being reimagined as a kids’ show: Fort Boyard – Ultimate Challenge. Two series (10 x 30 minutes) will air on CiTV and Disney XD in the autumn.


Ahead of its time In many ways, the Boyard franchise prefigured trends in format produc- tion. Every episode – 1,200 and count- ing, for shows in more than 38 territories – is shot at a grim Napo- leonic fort, 20 minutes by boat from the French Atlantic coast, which doubles for the atmospheric home of the character Boyard, where contest- ants bid to swipe his treasure. The single location brings produc-


tion efficiencies much as the global Wipeout hub in Argentina has for Endemol. “It’s the original carousel production,” says Pickard, who, along with Karen Vermeulen, SVP global sales and co-production at Zodiak Kids, brokered the deal. “What’s fantastic about Adventure Line Productions is that they’ve been really adaptable to local broad- casters. I think that’s a major element


46 | Broadcast | 30 September 2011


hen RDF hired Nigel Pickard as director of chil- dren’s and family program-


Tic Toc House


‘What’s fantastic about ALP is they’ve been really adaptable


to local broadcasters’ Nigel Pickard


of us being able to apply it now to a kids’ audience.” The adult show has been a mainstay


of France 2’s summer season every year since 1990, and it enjoyed a revival across Europe in 2010, with ProSiebenSat.1 (Germany) devoting a primetime slot at Kabel Eins, and Suomi TV (Finland) also among the seven countries producing it last year. It also received 1.7 million viewers


(47% share) on Sweden’s TV4, and TV3 (Denmark) tripled its audience


share for the same slot the previous year. Sweden, Norway and Algeria join France in production for 2011. According to Pickard, Zodiak


had the idea to reversion Fort Boyard for kids in August last year and, after initial development, received interest from CiTV programme manager Jamila Metran and controller Emma Tennant. Yet the show was a stretch, budget-wise, for a single broadcaster and, after MipCom 2010, Zodiak worked with Karen K Miller and David Levine, respectively director of acquisitions and co-pro- ductions at Disney Channels World- wide and VP of programming and general manager at Disney XD, to settle the deal. Due to equipment costs and


weather, the entire annual production is squeezed into a few weeks in high summer, before the fort is once again abandoned to the elements. “It’s a credit to all parties that we got over all the hurdles involved in a co-produc- tion in that time. If we’d faltered, we would have had to wait for a whole year,” Pickard says. Disney will show the series across


its XD cable and satellite channels, excluding the Nordic countries and France, and CiTV will take the UK premiere this autumn. In the mean- time, Zodiak Kids will present a show- reel and episodes to buyers, and is seeking to extend the franchise into other territories. “First and foremost, we hope it


Fort Boyard


works for Disney XD and CiTV, and rolls on for years,” Pickard says.


www.broadcastnow.co.uk


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