TV-Loonland takes on distribution rights for award-winning preschool animated series, WORDWORLD

TV-Loonland - August 2009
 

MIPCOM 2009 will be the launch platform for Loonland's new fledgling, the critically-acclaimed preschool show WORDWORLD. Formats include a 74 x 11' series, 8 music clips and 52 Build-a-Word Songs. Television, Home Entertainment and New Media rights have been secured for Western and Eastern Europe including Russia, Africa and South Africa and Israel.

WORDWORLD is an Emmy Award-winning multimedia property that helps children learn English. Created by visual artist, Don Moody, WORDWORLD delivers unique characters and storytelling! Each episode is a fun narrative built around a wacky troupe of WordFriends who are made up of the letters that spell their names. The WordFriends - Dog, Duck, Ant, Bear, Frog, Sheep and Pig - help each other solve everyday challenges with the power of words. Preschoolers are invited to join the WordFriends on comical adventures, where problems are resolved by "WordBuilding."

In the English language, letters and their sounds are the building blocks for words and reading. In WORDWORLD, children are taught to put letters together to build words that come alive. WORDWORLD encourages "WordBuilding"; when children put letters in the correct order, they morph from a word into a WordFriend or WordThing -- reinforcing English letters, sounds and words! Everything in WORDWORLD is made up of the letters that spell their name in English.

Olivier Dumont, Managing Director at TV-Loonland: "We are very proud to have secured the distribution rights for this outstanding property. This is both an innovative and highly qualitative show that brilliantly combines learning, humour and kid-relevant themes so that each one is more than just a lesson: it's entertainment that children REALLY want to watch. It fits perfectly into our line-up of programming and we are absolutely confident that WORDWORLD will fascinate broadcasters and their younger viewers alike and will help get children excited about speaking English and even relating to English words as their friends."

Don Moody, creator of WORDWORLD says: "We are delighted to expand WORDWORLD's viewership across the globe with TV-Loonland as a key partner. We are particularly excited to be working with Loonland because of their deep experience and consistent success with high quality children's content. This collaboration should result in broad scale adoption of WORDWORLD as the definitive entertaining, English language learning tool. WORDWORLD encourages children to embrace language and recognize the power of words."

The Story so far:
Since it's illustrious television debut on PBS Kids in September 2007, WORDWORLD has expanded globally and is now airing in 22 countries, reaching more than 9 million viewers worldwide. The show has been adapted into three languages (English, French and Cantonese). An extensive consumer product license program has been established, enjoying strong retail support across US mass retailers such as Target and Toys R Us. And in addition, the highly trafficked interactive website boasts over 1 million hits and is further proof of a budding WORDWORLD worldwide success story.