Sixteen South signs sales manager

The distribution arm of Belfast-based kids’ producer Sixteen South has appointed a sales manager from Cloudco Entertainment, which was formerly known as American Greetings Entertainment.

Alex van Blanken

Alex van Blanken has joined Sixteen South Rights from Cloudco, which rebranded earlier this year and distributes Sixteen South’s show Claude.

Van Blanken previously spent more than six years at Ingenious, where from 2013 he worked with Sixteen South on financing shows including Lily’s Driftwood Bay, Wildwoods, Claude, Pinkalicious and Peterrific.

He will now distribute Sixteen South’s library of shows and will also be involved in pre-sales for the company’s slate of new content.

Seasons one and two of Lily’s Driftwood Bay were recently picked up by ITVBe in the UK, which will air the show on its free-to-air programming block LittleBe. The show continues to air on Nick Jr.

Elsewhere, both seasons of the show have been picked up by Portuguese national broadcaster RTP, while Globosat in Brazil and Canadian French-language broadcaster TFO have acquired season one. Lily’s Driftwood Bay is already broadcast in Canada in English on TVO, which has also acquired season two.