Discovery Italia, Xilam link up

MIPCOM: Discovery Italia has signed a long-term output deal with French animation studio Xilam for existing and upcoming productions.

The agreement, amounting to 14 series or 450 half-hours of content, will help strengthen Discovery Italia’s animated comedy line-up on its free-to-air kids’ channel K2, which already airs Xilam shows such as Oggy & the Cockroaches and The Daltons.

Loredana Di Domenico, programming and content acquisition director for Discovery Italia, said building a partnership with Xilam was “unavoidable,” describing the French prodco as “masters of animated comedies.”

The deal includes 250 half-hours of library shows, including Oggy, The Daltons and Space Goofs, and 120 half-hours of series in production, among them Hubert & Takako, Zig & Sharko (season two) and The Daltons (season two). The deal also covers three upcoming new series (80 half-hours) Xilam is due to produce in 2015/16.

Marc du Pontavice, founder and president of Xilam, said the deal with Discovery was important to the company, which has just sold Welcome to the Ronks to Disney for EMEA, Asia and Australiasia.

“K2 is doing a tremendous job giving exposure to Xilam’s series. This cooperation is going to bring more and more fans to our brand titles,” he said.