News Release
January, 2006
Milly and Molly on Television
The last pieces of the production/development jigsaw fell into place just before Christmas, when Milly, Molly Group Holdings finalised agreements with the international consortium, which will put the television series together. The consortium includes:
- Scrawl Studios of Singapore—one of the world's leading animation companies.
- Beyond Productions—one of the biggest producers and distributors of children's programming in the world.
- The Media Development Authority of Singapore.
- Milly, Molly Group Holdings.
The multi award winning Australian children's television producer, Ron Saunders will produce the series.
Ron has an extensive track record in producing children's programming and animation. He has held senior positions at Yoram Gross-EM TV, Southern Star and Film Australia, and has also produced independently. His many credits include the creation of the popular pre-school series Johnson & Friends (an International Emmy Finalist), Magic Mountain and most recently, McDonald's Farm. He was executive producer of the children's series Girl From Tomorrow, Sun On The Stubble and Return To Jupiter—and of the Australian Film Insitute award-winning Spellbinder. Ron was also executive producer of Mario Andreacchio's feature film Napoleon, and has documentary credits for such series as Wild China, Mini Dragons and Flowers and the Wide Sea, as well as the first of the Australian Biography series.
Ron has had his heart set on producing Milly, Molly as an international television series, since early 2002. He believes that "Milly, Molly is simply the most wonderful set of books that he has ever come across... they are original, unique, extremely creative and manage to carry an implicit message that is so desperately important in today's world." He loves the Milly, Molly catch phrase, "We may look different but we feel the same." Being so timely and topical, he plans to promote this message in a subtle but apparent way.
Loredana Cunti of Toronto and Los Angeles—former Vice President of Children's Programming for Universal International Television—will work in an advisory capacity with production, and will place broadcast and video across North America. During her tenure at Universal, Loredana was in charge of worldwide childrens' television distribution and acquisition—including merchandising and video divisions.
Milly, Molly has created a lot of international interest in the television industry, and there was strong competition for the television production rights. In the end Milly, Molly Group Holdings took the long-term view, and decided to go with what we considered to be the best team for the project.
Beyond Entertainment Ltd will be undertaking worldwide television broadcasting and DVD/video distribution while Newman International Group will be handling all of the international licensing for merchandise.
The first thirteen shows of the first series are now in pre-production. It is the intention of the consortium to launch the Milly, Molly series to an international television programme buying audience at the prestigious MIPCOM Junior show in Cannes in the autumn of 2006.
In other news...
China
Greetings from Beijing Normal University Press.
Our colleagues at Beijing Normal University Press send New Year's greetings to the Milly, Molly family around the world. Philip Yang tells us that preparation for China's traditional spring festival is well underway (it begins on January 29 th). Philip goes on to say that the Milly, Molly books have been very well received, by children and parents in China—as is attested to by the great amount of positive correspondence and unsolicited reviews he has read and received (particularly from mothers). Milly and Molly are now among the most popular publications on Dangdang, the biggest online bookshop in China www.dangdang.com
In practical terms, BNUP have now sold (or have committed orders for) their first million books. They accomplished this feat in the first four months since their launch of Milly, Molly in P.R. China. China's Ministry of Education has now taken the step of recommending Milly, Molly books as "perfect books for all kindergartens and pre-schools in China". Needless to say, this has created even more interest with China's major book distributors.
BNUP intend to undertake a second, larger, print run in February. This run will also include 160,000 multi-lingual, interactive CD ROMS (in Chinese & English) as a giveaway.
Germany
Germany has asked for 160,000 interactive multi-lingual CD ROMS. Our colleagues at Audio Books on Demand (A.B.O.D.) in Munich have told us that they also intend to press 20,000 CDs of the Milly, Molly song in German.
Italy
Italy's oldest publishing house, EDT Srl., are already seeing encouraging results from the launch of Milly, Molly in Italian. EDT's website is dynamic and colourful, and can be found at www.millymolly.it