Olly the little white van: more products, more countries, more languages!

Henry Becket, the creator of ‘Olly the Little White Van’, has this week announced a series of new deals around the world, putting more miles on the clock for this favourite pre-school property

Tokyo-based Fine Films is to distribute the first two seasons on DVD in Japanese from early 2015 whilst NPO Zapp, the leading Dutch-language children’s channel, is to air all 65 episodes daily in the Netherlands starting next week.

These new deals are in addition to further Success for Olly in recent weeks. High-rating Istanbul children’s channel Yumurcak started broadcasting ‘Olly’ twice daily in Turkish last month and the first Russian-language episodes have just broken on YouTube through XMedia, in a deal brokered by AWOL of Paris.

The global popularity echoes that in the UK where the show continues to attract high ratings for both on air and VOD versions of ‘Olly’ on ‘Milkshake!’ and Cartoonito, and two new half-hour shows are being screened monthly at cinemas around the UK. There are plans to release a second DVD in the UK in 2015.

Sales of licensed products are also growing fast, not least with the launch of over 20 new branded publishing and stationery lines in Turkey. More license deals are in the pipeline, with a global/macro-regional toy deal high on the list of priorities.

“We have demonstrated that ‘Olly’ is here to stay as a preschool favourite,” Becket emphasised, “as it invariably rates in the top 5 wherever it runs, and there is strong demand for more seasons both in the UK and overseas. We are now working on an aggressive marketing strategy for 2015 to capitalise on the momentum we have established.”