TIFFCOM: Quotas on foreign content aired by European broadcasters are hampering toon exports from the Far East and necessitating more coproduction, according to an exec at Japan’s TV Tokyo.

^[1]Hiroshi Tsutsumi, manager of the global development and distribution department in the animation division at TV Tokyo, told C21 this week it was becoming more difficult for Far Eastern firms to shop their kids’ content into European countries because of toughening quotas on foreign programme imports.

Japan has provided some of Europe’s biggest kids’ hits over the years, including the Pokemon and Digimon franchises, but faces being squeezed out by the giant US studios as regulations tighten.

Tsutsumi said: “At TV Tokyo we mainly focused on overseas sales of Japanese animation but it’s getting very difficult, especially in Europe, where there are quota systems.

“The time slot for foreign programmes is limited and we have to compete with Disney animation and others. In the US, most of the programming, TV stations or distribution companies are part of the conglomerates like Disney or Fox, so there’s no room there either.

“These American conglomerates can sell the European TV stations a bunch of programmes altogether so the channel can fill its quota from the US alone and there is no room for Japanese content.”

TV Tokyo has long-standing sales for its toon Naruto, which has aired for more than 600 episodes in Japan and been carried by Mediaset in Italy and Viacom in France, but is increasingly having to turn to coproduction to cut through in Europe.

Last year, it embarked on its first international coproduction of a toon, joining ^[2] French animation studio Gaumont-Alphanim and Italy’s Studio Campedelli and Rai Fiction on Calimero.

Even in this case, TV Tokyo is “only an investor” and most of the decisions are “made at the French end to satisfy the quota,” according to Tsutsumi.

“The director must be French, for instance. To be involved from the ground up we’d have to travel there every two weeks. It’s difficult, so we invest and get some rights to the show in Asia,” he said.