Showlab is a television production company with offices in three major Italian cities: Turin, Milan and Rome. After a successful Mipcom/MipJr thanks to titles like "YoYo," "Miracle Tunes" or “Whiky & his Friends”, Micheline Azoury, Director of Sales & Acquistions at Showlab, discusses with Señal News the international strategy of the company and the business models it is exploring.
- How would you define the new international strategy of Showlab?
“Showlab is Prodea Group’s media company, an Italian reality with a strong international vocation and a capacity to plan and produce content for any kind of platform in our media world today. The group has been driving new approaches and trends to the market and positioning itself fairly well at both distribution business, which includes both TV and L&M. We also maintain our strong side, which is production and structuring together a smart engagement of EU projects developed with partners from the region”.
- What specific business models will you try to explore in the short and mid-term?
“We are born as a production company and this is where our main focus will remain. What we expanded is our genre of production. The company has stood out for the production of shows for prime-time television, factual, drama and entertainment formats for the last 20 years. In the past three years, the company has been focusing on programs for kids and young audiences with successful consumer-product activities. Our Consumer Division’s plans are clear and we have soon new IP joining our lineup for those specific categories”.
- Will you focus your business on any particular region or territory?
“We start from Europe but not focusing less at all on the other regions. We are looking for partnerships in Japan, Korea, China, Russia, and the Americas. Hence, we have no particular focus on specific territory”.
- Are you open to developing more co-production models with international players? Do projects like "YoYo," "Miracle Tunes" or “Whiky & his Friends” repositioned the global brand of the company?
“In spring 2018 the production of the second season of ‘YoYo’ began, in co-production with RAI Ragazzi, Grid Animation and Telegael, which will be completed in early 2020. Designed by Ugo Nespolo, one of the protagonists of the international pop art, ‘YoYo’ is one of the flagship preschool series of RAI Ragazzi. With the second season, which will bring to 104 the number of episodes available, the series will certainly be more attractive both for the television market and the OTT platforms and the licensing and merchandising market. We have for sure confirmed our presence on the kids’ content market starting from our domestic market and since earlier this year on the International market as well”.
By Diego Alfagemez