world licensing
Rainbow Designs takes on Abney & Teal
BBC Worldwide has awarded the UK master toy and gift licence for a brand new Ragdoll show The Adventures of Abney & Teal to Rainbow Designs. The Adventures of Abney & Teal is the latest series from the award-winning Ragdoll
Productions and launches on CBeebies on 26th September and is aimed at 3-6 year old boys and girls. The creator of the series is Joel Stewart, an established artist, author and musician. Abney and Teal are two friends who live on an island in the middle of a lake in the middle of a park surrounded by the background hustle and bustle of the big city. Their lives are full of discovery and exploration and they share their island with unusual and funny characters who also observe and take part in Abney and Teal’s adventures. In Autumn 2012, Rainbow will launch a brand new range for widespread distribution
for the show that will include art & craft, role-play toys, traditional toys soft toys, puzzles and games. Anthony Temple, MD Rainbow Designs said: “It is very exciting for Rainbow to be
appointed by BBC Worldwide as master toy licensee and a great honour to be working with Ragdoll Productions for the first time. The show is a natural fit to the Rainbow portfolio and a perfect match for our core customer base, the quality toy, book and gift retailers.”
Club Penguin goes mobile
Club Penguin has launched its first App for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad based on the popular game from the Club Penguin virtual
world.The move celebrates Club Penguin hitting 150 million registered users. Available now in the App Store, Puffle Launch
features fast and fun gameplay in which players blast pet Puffles through a series of challenging levels. Puffles are the penguinsí pets in Club Penguin, and have become a phenomenon of their own with more than 20 million Puffles already adopted in 2011.
“Kids are going mobile and have been asking
for Club Penguin to go there with them,” said Lane Merrifield, Club Penguin co-founder and executive vice president of Disney Online Studios. “Disney pioneered virtual worlds and social gaming for kids, and now we want to enable kids to connect with their friends and our worlds on the go” . “This is only the beginning for Club Penguin on mobile and we have some really exciting plans that will unfold over the next year.”
Licensingworld 47
The toy trade’s number 1 resource for licensing news and opinion
Chorion assets sold to former chairman
The rights to Chorion’s The World of Beatrix Potter and The Octonauts have been sold for an undisclosed sum to a new company to backed by Chorion’s former chairman Lord Waheed Alli. Chorion’s senior bankers had decided to break up the business after
it failed to renegotiate a £70m debt burden. Beatrix Potter and Octonauts are the first assets to be sold and Alli is understood to have financed the purchase with the help of the sale of half his £30m stake in online fashion retailer ASOS. Other assets expected to be sold separately include Agatha Christie’s
literary estate, with the author’s family as a frontrunner, as well as the Mr Men books, Paddington Bear and Enid Blyton’s Noddy. Then Guardian reported that Alli’s new vedhicle, Silvergate Media, had
“beat significant interest” from rival bidders to the two properties, which were described as “not thought to be profitable because merchandising revenue from TV series based on both properties has yet to take off.” Alli resigned from Chorion last month, along with its deputy chairman William Astor, after he was unable to find a new backer for the company. Both his stake in the w and that held by 3i are thought to be worthless, with cash raised from sales going to pay off Chorion’s banks.
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