CreaCon Group signs new City of Friends licensing deals with Top Toy Hong Kong Ltd.
London, UK -- CreaCon Group continues to build the licensing programme for its popular pre-school series City of Friends after signing up toy partner, leading Northern European toy company Top Toy Hong Kong Ltd, as well as a raft of new licensees and products across DVD, publishing and CD categories.
CreaCon and Top Toy have agreed a long term collaboration which will see Top Toy create, produce and distribute a range of City of Friends toys in the German and Nordic markets. The first toys will launch at retail in Top Toy owned and licensed Toys R’Us and BR-Store chains and independent toy stores, in Autumn 2013. The new range will include the popular scooter character from the City of Friends TV series - ‘Scoot’, as well as bedding, lunch boxes and drink bottles. Top Toy’s City of Friends toy range will complement the range of vehicles, figurines and plush created by CreaCon’s existing Nordic toy partner TSI also launching this Autumn.
CreaCon has also signed a DVD distribution deal with Lace Digital Media Sales for City of Friends in the UK, following an agreement with Sky Vision, which handles TV and media distribution for the series. Lace will launch a series of City of Friends DVD’s featuring episodes from the popular series. The first City of Friends DVD is already available on Amazon and on the City of Friends web shop Cityoffriends.com with further launches in time for Christmas 2013.
CreaCon has also inked a deal with Signature Publishing to publish City of Friends features and games in every issue of its popular UK monthly pre-school compilation magazine ‘Fantastic Magazine’, with two larger ‘bumper’ issues per year featuring City of Friends cover mounts. While an agreement with Films 4 You will see the launch of a series of five City of Friends DVD’s comprising episodes from series one of City of Friends, in Portugal and Portuguese speaking Africa from summer 2013. In addition, Popular City of Friends episodes also feature on the recently released Milkshake Mix compilation DVD, from City of Friend’s UK broadcaster Channel 5 milkshake.
CreaCon has also produced a City of Friends music CD, featuring popular songs from the TV series and available on the City of Friends Web shop.
Carl Christian Hamre, Creator of City of Friends and CreaCon Entertainment’s CEO commented, “We are absolutely delighted to be partnering with such a renowned company as Top Toy. As the leading Northern European toy company their experience will be key to building the City of Friends licensing programme. We are thrilled that we will be able to offer a range of wonderful new products to our fans and we look forward to working with our new licensees to promote the new product ranges for Christmas 2013 and beyond.”
CreaCon Group already has an extensive City of Friends licensing programme in place in the Nordic region across toys, games, apparel, food, Apps and electronic games including toy deal with major Nordic company TSI. CreaCon also has a multi year deal with Turner Broadcasting, which includes the broadcast of City of Friends on Cartoon Network and Boomerang across the Nordic and Baltic region where it debuted in Autumn 2012.
City of Friends is uniquely based on the adventures of a real-life Norway state police officer, CreaCon Founder and CEO Carl Christian Hamre, who first told them as bedtime stories for his young son. First broadcast in the Nordic region in 2010, City of Friends follows the adventures of new recruits to the Emergency Services working together to solve problems in their city. Today, City of Friends is broadcast in more than 180 countries and in 23 languages around the world. CreaCon Group is Norway’s leading independent children’s production company with businesses that span TV production & distribution, licensing, live events, DVD production and distribution, music and digital operations. City of Friends airs in the UK on Channel 5’s milkshake!
Source: CreaCon Group
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
