Due to the fragmentation of kids' audiovisual consumption, Monster Entertainment has elaborated and implemented clever strategies in order to remain relevant in the dynamic current landscape. Since last year, the Irish distributor has been working with other distribution companies to represent their titles for in-flight entertainment, a sector where Monster Entertainment is "particularly strong," commented Ben Murphy, sales executive at the company, to Señal News. Monster Entertainment has been a member of APEX (Airline Passenger Experience Association) since 1999 when they started selling content to airlines. "Last year, we acquired the North American rights to 24 films from the GKIDS catalog," said Murphy. The company is also promoting “Jungle Beat movie; “Puffin Rock and the New Friends”, the Oscar-nominated “Wolfwalkers” from Cartoon Saloon, some feature films from Australia's Odin's Eye Entertainment, and mobile games for in-flight as well. "We're working with companies that kindly trusted us to represent their titles," stated Murphy.
Another business strategy implemented by Monster Entertainment has been the expansion of their catalog in terms of music content. "We now have 91 hour-long concerts from the ‘Memory Lane’ series, for which we recently acquired four new seasons, and they are doing well for us," asserted the executive, who also stated they are always acquiring new animation titles. "We have new seasons of ‘Earth to Luna’, which is a big hit for us; new seasons of ‘Noodle and Bun’, which was acquired by Canal+; and the new-brand preschool series ‘Reggie Rex’, that's a highlight of ours," he said. “Reggie Rex” (104x6') is a Chinese-American co-production, and Monster Entertainment is representing the rights outside of Asia. "We anticipate that's going to do very well for us. It's already a big hit in Asia; we've just started releasing the English version, and we sold it to the Czech Republic and RTE in Ireland," he added.
Murphy also highlighted the new series “Doodle Girl” (26x7' for 4-8-year-olds) from Studio Meala, which Season 2 is already moving towards production. Another title is “Tiny Toot” (26x7' for 2-5-year-olds) from Toolbox Film in Denmark which has already been pre-sold to DR in Denmark, SVT in Sweden, NRK in Norway, YLE in Finland, and RTE in Ireland. "It's the first time we've acquired content for such a young age," he said, adding that the non-dialogue series “Jungle Beat” continues to be a big hit for the company. "It has diamond status on YouTube, hundreds of millions of views every month; they're on season eight and they've got a second movie coming out," he commented. "There is a narrated version now with voiceover, which works for some broadcasters," he explained.
In addition, Monster Entertainment is also promoting “Holt” (26x11' for 6-11-year-olds) from Igloo Animations in Ireland and Digitoonz in India, commissioned by RTE. "It's a sci-fi fantasy adventure series that's going to be released next year; it's in production at the moment," said the executive. "It has serial episodes, which is something that we don't acquire so often, and it's for the older age group. That's another way we're diversifying—not moving away from preschool, but just opening up to more age groups," he explained.
The Monster Entertainment sales executive also noted the second series they are promoting, such as “Noodle and Bun”, “Pins and Nettie”, and “Fia's Fairies”. "Our whole focus is to build brands and work with the producers to help them make new seasons," he said.
FUTURE GOALS
Murphy asserted that Monster Entertainment is going to continue to look at and acquire feature films for airlines. "That's been good for us," he commented. He also underlined the new slate they are pushing and hopes the rest of the series can keep growing, "especially ‘Earth to Luna’," he said. "We're just looking forward to improving and growing the sales for all the titles," he concluded.
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