Moominvalley (13 x 22’) has been sold to SF Studios across the Nordics, NRK in Norway, and RÚV in Iceland through deals negotiated by PGS Entertainment. The series, based on the beloved Moomin stories by Finnish-Swedish author and artist Tove Jansson, is commissioned by Yle in Finland and Sky in the UK, and produced by Gutsy Animations. PGS Entertainment represents the series for worldwide distribution excluding the UK, Finland, Japan, South Korea and China.
Seasons one and two of the animated drama will be available on DVD and digital copy across the Nordics in late 2020 through a deal with SF Studios. Moominvalley will also be available on SF Studios’ SVOD platform SF Kids in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark at a later stage. In Norway, Moominvalley season one will launch in Autumn 2020 on NRK Super, when the series will also be available on NRK Super TV and NRK TV. The series will debut in Iceland on RÚV in Autumn 2020.
Commissioned by Yle (Finland), Sky (UK) and NHK (Japan), the other new public broadcasting partners announced in early April include France Television FTV (France), ZDF (Germany), RAI (Italy), NPO ZAPP (Netherlands), RTS (Switzerland), Czech TV (Czech Republic), ERR (Estonia), MTVA (Hungary), RTP (Portugal) and Once Nino (Mexico). Other partners on-board are Canal+ & Puls TV (Poland), Medialaan (Fl. Belgium), Kidzone (Baltics), Talit & Noga (Israel), Jeem TV (UAE), SF International (Scandinavia), Qualson (South Korea) and Youku (China).
Moominvalley has won several awards at distinguished festivals and competitions around the world, including Best Children’s Series at British Animation Awards (2020) and Best Animated Kids Programme at TBI Content Innovation Awards (2019). The commissioning broadcasters Yle and Sky successfully started broadcasting the series (26×22’) in Spring 2019, as did NHK in Japan. In Finland, the series saw record-breaking ratings, with the first episode (Little My Moves In) watched by 1.5 million people. The success continued on the VOD platform, where the show became the #1 program on Yle Areena, with an average audience size of 348,000 (period between Feb. 25 – April 24). Moominvalley was the most watched TV series in Finland 2019 (all channels and platforms included). The season 1 soundtrack has reached over 20 million streams on Spotify alone.
The series is the creation of creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff, Oscar®-winning director Steve Box (Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit), Emmy-award-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Louise Holmes, and award-winning scriptwriters Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Beginning with the first Moomin story published in 1945, the original Moomin books have been translated into over 50 languages. The Moomin brand is one of the most successful licensing properties in the world, with annual revenues close to a billion dollars. The lavishly produced CG series (each episode costing approx. 1 million euros), made with state-of-the-art 3D CGI with 4K deliverables, targets both family and kids.
“First Moomin stories were written by Tove Jansson over 75 years ago during World War II. She wanted to tell stories with happy endings for people who lived in fear and chaos – acting as a reminder of happiness and safety. These stories are now adapted to the new Moominvalley series and the values that Moomins carry – friendship, love, kindness, respect for nature, equality to name a few – are needed now more than ever. Each episode brings hope to everyone.” says executive producer Marika Makaroff.
“The incredible public broadcasters that we now have on-board shows the power and strength of the brand, amply justified by its unrivaled legacy and the quality of the production and storytelling in the series. Moominvalley will surely continue to deliver massive success to our partners around the world,” says Philippe Soutter of PGS.