Pinkfong’s Baby Shark Joins the Nickelodeon Family
Pinkfong and Nickelodeon to Enter into a Content and Global Licensing Deal for Baby Shark
June 05, 2019 09:43 AM Eastern Daylight Time
NEW YORK--Nickelodeon, a division of Viacom International Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAB, VIA), and SmartStudy, the global entertainment company behind the beloved children’s brand, Pinkfong, will partner to develop a new original animated series based on Baby Shark for global distribution, while Viacom Nickelodeon Consumer Products (VNCP) will be managing consumer products licensing worldwide, excluding Asia, for the property.
Baby Shark became a breakout sensation when it launched on YouTube in November 2015. With music, characters, story and dance all combined together, Baby Shark took the world by storm, amassing 2.9 billion YouTube views and becoming the 9th most watched video in the platform’s history. The song recorded a 20-week-streak on the Billboard Hot 100 and spawned a viral phenomenon #BabySharkChallenge, generating over 700K cover videos around the globe.
“Baby Shark is a multiplatform phenomenon, and appetite for more content and products is strong around the world,” said Pam Kaufman, President, Viacom Nickelodeon Consumer Products. “Our outstanding creative teams are moving fast to get more Baby Shark product across multiple categories to retailers, and our content team is excited to develop a terrific original animated series that will bring this property to new heights and even more fans.”
“Baby Shark has captured the imagination of millions of fans around the world, so it’s no surprise it’s one of the top 10 most-viewed videos on YouTube ever,” said Ramsey Naito, Executive Vice President, Nickelodeon Animation. “At the heart of any popular piece of content is a terrific character, and we have a great opportunity to further explore the world of Baby Shark and follow this family through some great animated adventures on Nickelodeon.”
“We are really excited to be partnering with Nickelodeon to co-produce our first television series about Baby Shark and look forward to bringing our characters from the screen into the real world,” said Min Seok Kim, CEO, SmartStudy.
About SmartStudy
Founded in June 2010, SmartStudy is a global entertainment company moving beyond the limits of platforms to create original content across children’s education, games and animation. Through SmartStudy’s beloved children’s brand, Pinkfong, the company produces modern-day songs and stories to provide stimulating, fun, learning experiences to children.
About Pinkfong
Pinkfong is a global entertainment brand that creates award-winning kids’ content for families around the world. Pinkfong has over 4,000 songs and stories within its vast library of children’s content, which can be accessed on the App Store and Google Play, as well as on YouTube and Amazon Video. Pinkfong’s accolades include the Amazon Video Direct Star, YouTube’s Diamond Play Button and Google Play’s Best Family App of 2014-2017.
For more information, please visit the Pinkfong website, subscribe to its YouTube channel, or follow the company on Facebook and Instagram.
About Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon, now in its 40th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The brand includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, digital, location based experiences, publishing and feature films. For more information or artwork, visit http://www.nickpress.com. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA, VIAB).
About Viacom Nickelodeon Consumer Products
Viacom Nickelodeon Consumer Products (VNCP) oversees all merchandising and retail operations for Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAB, VIA), one of the world’s leading multimedia entertainment companies and home to such powerhouse brands as Nickelodeon, MTV, Paramount Network, Paramount Pictures and Comedy Central. With a diverse portfolio spanning animation, preschool, youth and adult licenses, VNCP is committed to providing key partner development and innovative marketing solutions, ensuring the highest quality product offering across some of the world's most powerful TV and entertainment properties, including SpongeBob SquarePants, PAW Patrol and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
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Baby Shark fits in with Nick’s new direction under president Brian Robbins to create and seek out content in new formats and from other platforms for its target audience. In April, the channel premiered Ryan’s Mystery Playdate, starring toy-reviewing YouTube superstar Ryan from Ryan ToysReview, and promptly renewed it for a second season days later. Nickelodeon today announced that it has struck an agreement with pocket.watch, the producer of Ryan’s Mystery Playdate, to manage licensing in select international markets across all product categories for Ryan’s World, a companion consumer products line featuring Ryan and the universe of characters created by Ryan and his parents, and Ryan’s Mystery Playdate. Nickelodeon also has talent and/or licensing deals with Ryan's fellow YouTube stars JoJo Siwa, Isabella de La Torre ("La Bala"), and Annie LeBlanc.
The Baby Shark news comes a day after Nickelodeon ordered new seasons of four of its preschool animation favorites: PAW Patrol (season 7), Bubble Guppies (season 5), Abby Hatcher (season 2) and Butterbean’s Café (season 2).
Here’s the video that inspired the latest Nickelodeon project:
A video accompaniment for the aquatic-themed earworm for kids was uploaded to YouTube in June 2016 by Pinkfong, an educational brand from South Korea which makes fun, catchy music videos tailored to kids. The 2-minute infectious clip sees a little boy and girl singing and dancing along to repetitive-sounding lyrics while they tell the story of a family of sharks — a baby, mommy, daddy, grandma and grandpa — who hunt and avoid danger together.
Though the song existed before the first Baby Shark video, Pinkfong is responsible for the song’s recent rise to fame. The original video was posted in 2016, but Baby Shark became a viral hit in 2018, after hashtag challenges initially tailored to parents of Baby Shark fans started to trend and even many people without young children found the song stuck in their heads. The song was later covered by various television hosts and was featured on the X Factor.
Baby Shark cracked the Billboard Top 100 in the first week of January, and has since become the most popular “educational” video trend on YouTube. The original video secured the ninth spot on the top 10 most viewed YouTube videos (beating out Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off” and Katy Perry’s “Roar”). James Corden has also recorded a piano version of the hit, and Kylie Jenner has mentioned the song multiple times on social media and even had a live performance of the song at daughter Stormi Webster’s first birthday. On May 31, American DJ Jauz released an EDM version of the song. Baby Shark definitely has a lasting power.
Beyond the music videos, Pinkfong has 125 series of apps tailored towards children with 150 million downloads. Titles range from the Flappy Bird-esque Baby Shark Run to Pinkfong ABC Phonics. It makes sense that Pinkfong would focus on growing its place in the children’s entertainment sphere, and that a big American children’s entertainment company would want in on the viral phenomenon.
The news also comes just over a week after Nickelodeon released the first promo for the upcoming reboot of Blue’s Clues — and in addition to a new host, it boasts nifty new animations in the form of its titular dog, now CGI-animated.
Re-titled Blue’s Clues and You!, the show will be presented by Broadway star Joshua Dela Cruz. Just like original host Steve Burns, Dela Cruz has a Thinking Chair, a Handy Dandy Notebook and friends like Tickety Tock, Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper, Mailbox and Magenta.
More Nick: Nickelodeon Embarks on New Direction with its Biggest, Most Wide-Ranging Content Slate Ever!
Originally published: Wednesday, June 5, 2019 at 5:49pm BST.
Press release via Business Wire; H/T: Kidscreen; Additional sources: Deadline, People, Polygon, PopCulture.
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