KidsCo exits continue

Anna Pak has become the latest exec to leave international children’s channel KidsCo, following the recent exit of its founding chief exec.

Executive commercial director Pak left on Friday, and global head of advertising and marketing Chris Nicholls has also left the company, C21 can reveal.

KidsCo confirmed the departures in a brief statement. “Anna Pak and Chris Nicholls have left KidsCo to pursue other interests,” it read.

The news comes soon after C21 revealed at the end of last year that KidsCo co-founder and global CEO Paul Robinson was leaving after launching the channel in 2007.

C21 understands the latest exits leave KidsCo with a sales team of just two working staff – distribution director Kimberly Huttenstein and general manager of worldwide distribution Loic Autret. Marketing manager Simon Howells is away on sabbatical.

A spokeswoman for KidsCo joint owner NBCUniversal (NBCU) said Pak’s duties, which included channel distribution and all other commercial activities, were being shared amongst remaining staff.

Pak’s exit comes after more than two years with the channel, which is jointly owned by NBCU, Cookie Jar Entertainment and Nelvana Enterprises. She confirmed her departure when contacted this week but declined to comment further.

Pak joined in 2009 from Paris-based Euronews. She worked closely with Robinson, and effectively acted as his number two.

The news comes after KidsCo installed NBCU business development exec Hendrik McDermott to replace Robinson in an interim MD capacity following the latter’s exit.

Industries sources say NBCU’s global arm NBCU International remains keen on majority control of KidsCo and that it is negotiating to buy out joint owner Cookie Jar. A C21 source said a deal had not yet materialised, however.

Robinson and KidsCo co-founder Chris Borde also retain small stakes in the channel, which they launched along with Walt Disney Television president David Hulbert nearly five years ago.

NBCU is also understood to be among those after Hit Entertainment’s stake in US cablenet PBS Sprout, which is up for grabs following toyco Mattel’s buy-out of UK-based Hit. NBCU already part-owns the network.

Furthermore, a key regulatory requirement of Comcast Communications’ 51% takeover of NBCU last year was to ensure NBCU’s children’s programming business expanded, though this related to US broadcaster NBC and Hispanic net Telemundo.

The NBCU spokeswoman declined to comment directly on its children’s entertainment strategy but said: “NBCU thinks it is important to be in the kids’ television business.”

KidsCo is currently in nearly 100 territories in 18 languages across Central, Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Middle East but significantly hasn’t found carriage in the US and the UK.