In the very first session of the Animation Lab on Day 3 of ATF, DHX Media, territory manager, Thom Chapman took centre stage and spoke candidly on how the company has gone on to become a powerhouse of content in the past eight years ever since taking its first steps in 2006.
“DHX Media is home to nearly 300 titles globally and growing, with over 11,500 hours of content in its every blooming library and with nearly 150 global partners, you certainly can’t miss us,” beams Thom.
The company was formed when two production houses came together, namely Decode and Halifax, in 2006 to form DHX Media. Since then, in 2007 the company acquired Studio B Productions – which specialises in flash and 2D animation – followed by the acquisition of Wildbrand Production in 2010, which brought on board the pop culture phenomenon ‘Yo Gaba Gaba’ – a live action show that airs on Nick – and it further grew its business with acquisitions of Cookie Jar and CPLG in 2012 and Ragdolls in 2013, which is also home to ‘Teletubbies’. And along with Epitome Pictures in 2013 it got on board one of its most popular live action shows on air ‘Degrassi’.
“This year we acquired Nerd Corps and that has worked perfectly for boosting our creative abilities, as we now have the freedom to tap into the 400 odd workforces from there to work alongside the 100 man strong team that we have in house,” Thom expounded.
Thom mentioned that Canada has signed many co-production treaties in the past and with the recent treaty with India to co-produce shows, they are very excited to soon be working with the talent pool in the East.
“We are already looking very seriously at the China market for co-productions and India too is on our radar, but we will take things one at a time as we want to first do a SWOT analysis of the markets here before diving into co-producing right away,” he signed off.
Well, it certainly looks like Asia is the flavour of the season this time of the year, but then we are after all at the Asia TV Forum…