Israeli pre-school channel on UK shopping spree

Israeli nursery channel Hop! has been on a Cannes shopping spree, picking up a raft of pre-school series from the UK's BBC Worldwide, Minotaur and Egmont, as well as the US's Itsy Bitsy.

The cabsat channel's acquisitions director Galya Halaui walked away with rights to the first series of the BBC's Noddy in Toyland, which will air over the summer.

She also acquired US producer-distributor Itsy Bitsy's hit half-hour series, Ninny's Treehouse. {We've had our eye on this show since Mipcom, and wanted it as an anchor for our special summer morning broadcast strip,{ said Halaui.

The channel also bought Egmont Imagination's Skipper & Skeetto, a 26×13' co-production between Egmont and Hong Kong's Animation Services. The series has already been sold into Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany (Super RTL).

After a deal with UK distributor Minotaur, Hop also took cabsat rights to The Upstairs Downstairs Bears, a stop-frame co-production between Egmont, SMG TV and Cinar. Hop picked up all 26×10' episodes.

ON the production side, Hop is currently looking for co-production partners for its series The Magical Menagerie, a 52×6' non-dialogue stop-frame animation, which takes kids on an imagination-led tour of exotic animals.

{This is the first series to be realised, after securing an alliance with a large investment fund which will allow us to invest in content and expand our activities in the international market,{ said Hop's executive director Alona Abt.

The year-old channel airs seven days a week, 06:00-19:00, on local cable networks Matav, Golden Channels and Tevel – which together reach some 85% of Israeli homes – as well as DBS satellite service Yes Television. Altogether, Hop is available in 1.3m Israeli homes.

The ad-free channel is operated by Zebra Communications, a joint venture between local distributor Argo Films and Memad Television Studios.