Spacetoon’s Kamel Weiss talks reaching new audiences, fulfilling an increasing need for more localised content and aiming for digital expansion.
From Belgium to the US, LicensingSource chats to a selection of licensors and agents based outside of the UK to find out their takeaways from 2021, what they see as the biggest opportunities and challenges for licensing moving through 2022, their aims and what word they would use to describe business in both the year just gone and the current one.
Today – UAE: Kamel Weiss, strategic business development director, Spacetoon.
“2021 was quite a year and a great comeback from 2020. We reached a new audience and fulfilled the increasing need for more localised content. We maintained steady growth in our digital media platforms and specifically our VoD service, Spacetoon Go. The audience is increasingly demanding the content on VoD more than any other media platform, so we are responding to their needs by bringing more diverse shows.
Also, we were so happy to be back to the movie theatres again after the pandemic. Our movie distribution company, Spacetoon Pictures, has successfully surpassed all the expectations after the release of our flagship IP, Detective Conan 24. We were also able to introduce our first original production, Moshaya Family Animation, while our toy company – ToyPro – has made an impressive performance after launching two flagship original brands.”
“We are extremely excited about 2022. We are planning to embark on new and exciting adventures with our audience. We are bringing some big titles to the region – such as The Smurfs, Paddington and Power Rangers – and are continuing to invest more in original productions and partnering with top family influencers in the region to introduce new animated shows.
Obviously, we’re aiming for digital expansion whether pushing our streaming services or introducing new digital products and services such as NFT licensing and other licensing models in the digital space. ‘Interesting’ is my word for 2021, while ‘growth’ is my word for 2022.”
This feature originally appeared in the spring 2022 edition of Licensing Source Book. To read the full publication, click on this link.
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