Month: January 2021

The fourth season of the Emmy Award-winning preschool series, Bing, airing daily on Rai YoYo, thrills little ones thanks to themes close to the early years and now more relevant than ever. In fact, in one of the new episodes titled “Vaccination”, Bing meets a new character, Dr. Molly, to get vaccinated, a way to help children deal with this type of situation that can be a little scary. When this episode first aired in December on Rai YoYo, it reached 343,000 AMR and was the channel’s most watched episode of the day, with an 18.9% share among children ages 4-7!

The fourth season presents also a new character, Nicky, Sula’s little cousin, and many new themes and events, such as Halloween, Christmas and New Year’s. Other inherent emotional themes that the new series addresses are disappointment, worry, sadness, kindness, courage, and trust.

Overall, Bing was the most watched series in the 6 p.m. time slot among all children’s shows in Italy this December! Season 4 is also available on Rai YoYo’s RaiPlay app, where Bing is currently ranked #1.

The launch of the new episodes had a significant impact on audience’s engagement also on all the other platforms and channels, such as social media. App downloads increased by an incredible +36% in the month of December alone!

In addition, the first sign language version of Bing is available on TIMVision.

Maurizio Distefano Licensing, Bing’s Italian agent, continues to close licensing contracts with major Italian companies: the latest arrivals are Lubex, which will develop a line of accessories for cars, with sun shades suitable for younger passengers; Adriatic with beach toys, buckets and molds; Smoby for scooters and tricycles and Sevi that, thanks to the agreement with Giochi Preziosi, will develop wooden toys inspired by the series.

“Tg2 Storie” and “Rai News 24” dedicated a report to Animaccord’s animated series, Masha and the Bear, revealing some of the most interesting aspects behind its creation and production.

The report aired on Rai2’s program “Tg3 Storie” on the 27^th of Dicember 2020 and on the “RAINews-24 channel”, during one of the daily news reports on the 31^st of Dicember 2020 and on the 1^st of January 2021. Masha and the Bear episodes are on air every day on Rai YoYo, the channel that contributed to the taking off of the series thanks to the intense schedule since its arrival in Italy and that still today keeps fans at the highest point of interest. RaiPlay, the web-portal and Rai App version, plays a key role in the series success as well, allowing to view the episodes at any time.

The TV report, that aired on the Rai2 channel, presented a glimpse of some of the curiosities behind the animated series Masha and the Bear, known worldwide and dubbed in 42 different languages. Starting from how it all began, to some of the making processes, it offers an overview of what happens behind-the-scenes of the world’s successful series.

Oleg Kuzovkov, creator of Masha and the Bear, explains how the idea was born in 1996 from the encounter with a very lively little girl at the beach who kept bothering everyone. From there, 12 years later, the successful episodes of Masha and the Bear were created. Click on this link to watch the report by Rai2 dedicated to Masha and the Bear at the minute 34:38:

http://www.tg2.rai.it/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-1a5cb87d-22e4-4835-803f-493a856f4399-tg2.html#p=0

Thanks to Maurizio Distefano Licensing, Masha and the Bear, has a very active licensing program in Italy, with licensees for every product category, ranging from Easter eggs to olive oil, from footwear to children’s masks, from toys to publishing. The products of the licensees are also available online, in particular on Amazon with the dedicated Masha and the Bear shop, as well as on the Toys Center website. The Masha and the Bear experience is also immersive in-store: Toys Con Te has, in fact, dedicated an exclusive exhibition space to the series.

Maurizio Distefano, President of MDL, stated: “Masha and the Bear is a certainty on all points, the high quality of the series reflects automatically in each of its projects. A must for children’s television programs, which appreciate its proposal both in terms of content and products”.

Masha and the Bear, on air every day on Rai YoYo and Rai Play where it was the second most viewed Kids title during 2020, boasts 3 million subscribers on the Italian YouTube channel and 5.4 million followers on the Facebook page, continuing to prove its strength in the market. The series has established the Guinness World Record as the most viewed cartoon on YouTube, its success continues to grow to the point that one of its latest episodes entered the HIROSHIMA 2020 International Animation Festival for its special list of programs titled “BEST OF THE WORLD” and according to Parrot Analytics, an international research agency, it is included in TOP-5 most on-demand kids shows in the world as of December 2020.

Acamar Films’s Italian VOD partner, TIMVISION, produced the first ever sign language version of the multi-award-winning hit pre-school series, Bing.

Bing celebrates the messy, joyful reality of pre-school life and finds the big stories in the little moments. These stories represent the everyday dramas that all young children and the grown-ups in their lives will recognise.

A selection of original Bing episodes featuring an Italian sign language interpreter launched on TIMVISION on 24^th December 2020 as part of the company’s commitment to offer educational and fun-filled opportunities to deaf children in Italy. These dubbed episodes joined the original 78 episodes of Bing that have been available to stream on TIMVISION since November 2019. A total of 14 LIS (Lingua dei segni italiana) A total of 14 LIS (Lingua dei segni italiana) episodes will be available to stream by the end of this month with more to come in 2021.

Eroulla Constantine, Director of Sales and Distribution, Acamar Films said, “We are delighted to have Bing as part of TIMVISION’s growing catalogue of LIS version episodes on their platform. We stand alongside TIMVISION’s commitment to diversity and inclusion with meeting children’s specific needs.  We look forward to having more inclusive episodes of the series available in Italy.”

Bing has seen incredible success in Italy since it first launched in 2018 and is beloved among little ones and their grown-ups in the region. With more stories in high demand, the latest series recently launched on-air and on various platforms including the new Bing app, ‘Bing: Guarda, Gioca, Impara’. The app successfully launched in the summer and includes episodes and compilations, learning games and activities.