Recently, Europe has gotten a good old dose of American capitalism,

Japanese style. POKEMON has infested the European television market. The

children's mega-hit first debuted in the UK on Sky 1 in April and quickly

became the channel's #1 kids show. In October, the ITV Network and GMTV

secured UK terrestrial broadcast rights to the show. A month prior to the

ITV and GMTV deal, POKEMON started airing on Germany's RTL2, The

Netherlands' Fox Kids, Belgium's VT4 and RTL, Portugal's SIC and France's

Fox Kids. Starting at the end of December Spain's Tele5 will start airing

the Pikachu-vehicle as well. Tele5 acquired 105 episodes from Lacey

Entertainment which is the international distributor of the series. To

coincide with POKEMON's TV debut, Madrid-based BRB International will start

a POKEMON merchandising-licensing campaign for the Spanish market. BRB also

holds the right to release POKEMON videos in Spain. France's TF1 Video will

also release POKEMON videos to the French market in January to ride the

overwhelming international success of the series. POKEMON is the first

series to hold the #1 kids ranking in the U.S. for Saturday mornings and

first-run syndication since the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES did it in the

early '90s. Just for fun, if you're seeing your family over the holidays,

ask your four-year-old niece or nephew who the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

are. . .