In Canada, teletoon has offered a skedful of animated slot opportunity, and internationally, the potential foster homes for toons have also been busily populating the dial.

In the u.s., joining Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Kids WB!, Fox Kids Network, abc and The Disney Channel, the newest animation net launch is Toon Disney and more new kids/family nets are joining the fray. The thing that hits one after the more-slot euphoria wears off is the degree of vertical integration in this market sector, and the degree to which the newbies are big catalogues partnering and funneling into a channel.

However, where there is an outlet, there is opportunity.

For instance, this month saw the Japan launch of animax, a Tokyo-based, round-the-clock anime satellite channel from Sony Pictures Entertainment in tandem with a four-pack of Japan’s animation studios: Toei Animation, Sunrise, Kyokuichi Corporation and Nippon. While the new net, one of over 170 offerings on the SkyPerfecTV! digital package, seems self-supplied for programming, Toronto-based Cuppa Coffee scored some interstitial work from the new anime outlet.

Given the budget wisdom behind the Europe/Canada coproduction-friendly atmosphere (German and French producers can typically ante up 30% of a budget, and leverage higher licence fees within their countries), the tooncasting landscape in Europe is also of significant interest to Canadian animation producers.

The France/Canada Mini-Treaty signed in 1988 has cemented the two countries as animation copro partners of choice (40-60 hours per year), qualifying their offspring for cnc (France’s federal funding body) benefits and as European product and opening the resource-pooling to other countries as well. Cactus Animation’s Andre Belanger, a frequent coproducer, says he’s sometimes dealing with four or five partners.

With the u.s. hqed services in Europe struggling with Eurocon expectations and cnc-funding-privy French producers joining the ranks of European animation producers on the prowl for Canadian coproducers, this is still a growth opportunity.

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At a panel exploring the opportunities for animation held at mifa (the market side of the Annecy International Animation Festival) last month, the up and down sides of the various channel strategies within the increasingly complicated a/v environment were pondered.

The April launch of Toon Disney, a cartoon sub channel, is cited as an example of the expansionist niche-spawning-niche trend. And there’s Nickelodeon’s digital multiplex potential, the ability to stagger programming to reach different audiences at different times and cater to three distinct age groups.

Among the crystal-ball-gazing fodder is Germany’s Kinderkanal, an ard and zdf joint venture launched last year, and another example of the digitally compressed chain options, with potential to multiplex in ever-narrowing streams.

In the u.k., increased competition has also manifested itself as splitting the offerings into specialty blocks.

When Cartoon Network sent all the toons on holiday and aired five days of Flintstones, the ratings kept climbing up for the duration of the Flintathon. This supports the no-niche-too-thin argument.

‘We think we have nine versions of the channel, and perhaps a rock & roll version,’ says tbs’s Andy Bird, co-managing director, exec vp Entertainment Networks Europe.

Benoit Runel, director general of Fox Kids Network, takes the opposite view: ‘We don’t want to multiply the services – no Fox Kids Sports for instance. A brand isn’t elastic, you can’t cover all areas, you should avoid dispersion.’

Whatever theory you buy into, thematic channel advertising has enabled new manufacturers to target new audiences, allowing broadcasters to fill the coffer with new coin, some of which will filter down to producers for new animated shows.

With the omnipresent Disney floating somewhere in the middle, the basic options for producers looking to place product can be carved up into animation market sectors which include the generalist channel, which as it slices in France would be represented by Canal J, the formats – such as Nickelodeon, the u.s. specialty/international feed – specifically Cartoon Network, and the local specialty – such as high French-content feed Teletoon.

Teletoon is the result of TF1 looking at the niche market situation and launching the tps sub a year and a half ago ‘to try to claw back the market from the Americans,’ according to Teletoon’s director general Francois Deplanck.

With 400,000 digital subs, and looking for animation product for the two-to-12 set, the programming strategy evolved to dealing with terrestrial broadcasters rather than relying on the u.s. for programming.

Wanting to have icons, and dealing with heavy production loads, relationships with foreign producers such as Nelvana emerged. ‘We have to work upstream of the production process,’ says Deplanck.

In France, Canal J’s forecast 30/30/30 ad/satellite/cable split targets 10% from spin-offs/merchandise, and by 2003, Fox Kids aims to hit 50% ad-supported.

The Cartoon Network, while 100% subs in France, is 60% ads and 40% subs in the u.k. France-based Teletoon, with advertising on its way from 25% to 35% of revenues, finds the economics of expansion attractive and is becoming more international, launching in North Africa this month.

The way toon-centric brands work across cultures is going to be interesting, and producers who can crack the code of crossing markets without diluting brand will no doubt find the effort lucrative.

In Europe, the competition between terrestrial broadcasters and the new niche players has seen animation become a casualty on some of the traditional analog broadcast schedules, while in some instances, it has been the international brand which has faltered (Viacom yanked Nickelodeon Germany off the air last month due to low ad sales and high viewer competition for the three-year-old venture from new entities such as Kinderkanal).

However, some of the international brands vying for tooned-in viewers with the conventional nets are feeling confident, and are poised to step into local production.

Turner’s Cartoon Network, which reaches 40 million homes throughout Europe and over 100 million homes globally (as far afield as the Middle East and Africa), is embarking on its first u.k. coproduction (for ’99 delivery)

According to Bird, ‘Digital tv has allowed country-specific feeds to be produced, economically allowing you to target different cultures and markets. It’s changed how we an acquire and coproduce projects.’

Separate feeds for France and Spain, Nordic countries, etc., are planned by the end of the year. An office has been opened in Amsterdam for the service there.

This allows the net to acquire programs on an individual basis, allowing for greater market-catering flexibility and solving a thorny acquisition problem. ‘It was difficult to get international rights to animated product due to coproduction rights splits,’ says Bird.

To date, Cartoon has acquired 11 European shows for its pan-European feed, eight of which are French.

For the French and Spanish feeds, Cartoon has yet to do serious negotiation with anyone, so pricing is iffy on the new feeds. In the u.k., us$5,000 to us$6,000 would be on the low end of the spectrum, and that would be for older fare, while us$40,000 to us$50,000 is the high end of the half-hour spectrum.

On average, a 26 half-hours commitment would be in the us$20,000 to us$30,000 range.

Teletoon runs from cdn$1,000 to $2,000 per episode over a three-year period, up to $3,000 top, $6,000 max. At Canal J, only 10% of the sked is high-budget fare; about $1,500 per half-hour is typical. Fox Kids weighs in at $750 to $3,000 per episode.

Fox Kids, with the aim of funneling the Saban/Fox expertise into strengthening its competitive position in the u.s. and its knowledge of the international market, is aggressively growing its channel in Europe.

At the end of the year, Spain and Italy will become involved in this exercise, which entails channel setups with local management and with different marketing and programming policies targeting different age groups in different countries (in France it’s the four-to-10 set, which is also the main focus of TF1).

Fox Kids has an agreement with regulator csa to meet the 40% to 60% local content quota, and has reached the 40% level in France.

The Europe quota is more difficult to meet, says Benoit Runel, director general of Fox Kids, who pegs 50% this summer, citing setting up a studio there as a boon.

Cartoon had problems meeting Euro quotas, and is at 30% on the pan-Europe analog feed. An issue is the cost of dubbing when only done for cable and satellite – $4,500 per half-hour. While Cartoon could only choose from 19 of the animated shows at mip due to rights issues, the digital localized feeds should open the door to a flurry of acquisition.

Meanwhile, back in North America, Toon Disney, Disney/ abc’s new round-the-clock, all-toon channel, is trotting out library product (which includes over 2,000 episodes, in addition to all the famous one-off fodder). Much of the catalogue is also seen on 15-year-old sibling, The Disney Channel.

The American cable venture launched in April into five million basic cable homes in the u.s., with plans to up this base with additional cable carriage (Disney is paying cablers to add the channel to basic until the sub platform grows).

This August sees the launch of Saban/News Corp.’s new cable net, Fox Family Channel. Pax Net also launches in August and cbs repatriates animation to its rightful Saturday morning spots in the fall.

In May, the Jim Henson Company and Hallmark Entertainment announced Kermit Channel, a 24-hour general family pay service launching in Asia and Latin America this September (with additional launches to follow), which draws its lineup from the partners’ libraries and new programming.

Nickelodeon, the first cable net to sweep the top kids’ season ratings victory with its Saturday morning lineup, has further two-to-14 domination plans. Nickelodeon’s noggin, a 24-hour, commercial-free educational channel in partnership with Children’s Television Workshop, was announced in April as the front net on a pack of new Nickelodeon digital services from Viacom’s MTV Networks which will be on offer to engage analog and digitally as of January 1999.

noggin’s first year is all library product from Nick and ctw, and as to whether/how much outside production will find its way to the channel, late summer/early fall is the time frame for answers to those questions.

Beyond the voluminous catalogues behind some of the new entries precluding a flurry of acquisitions, some of the existing players are carrying the branding flag to new heights, increasing equity in the shows they schedule and bumping up in-house production.

Nickelodeon christened its own toon studio in Burbank this March, where it is producing the hot new shows Hey Arnold! and Angry Beavers, and upcoming entries OhYeah! Cartoons! and CatDog.

On the other side of the fence, PolyGram Television International’s u.k.-based animation endeavor PolyGram Visual Programming is taking an out-of-house slant to the equation by bringing rights/properties to producers in a label-oriented approach. First up is an animated version of the colorful preschool board-book-dwelling mouse heroine Maisy, to be produced for pvp by Devon-based King Rollo Films.

Another u.k. toon market entry is Pearson Television. John Bullivant, formerly with HIT Entertainment, recently had his first outing in his new job as head of Pearson’s new animation division at Annecy. In addition to developing new series, Bullivant is in charge of cross-platform synergy within the Pearson group.

Part of his mission is to rein back rights to properties from the Penguin library, such as Beatrix Potter. Pearson will be letting all rights expire and will repatriate the properties to be exploited via in-house divisions. Among the entities in the Pearson plc family are Penguin Putnam Books and Addison Wesley Longman.

When asked if there is room for another kids’ channel in the toon universe, Bullivant’s response was that there might well be.