UAE media firm signs deal for BBC kids show

KIDS TV: The twofour54 deal will see its Driver Dan's Story Train appearing on the BBC's CBeebies channel.

Media company twofour54 Abu Dhabi announced on Tuesday its first partnership deal to co-produce an Arabic and English children’s TV series with UK broadcaster the BBC.

Under the agreement with the UK’s 3Line Media, twofour54 ibtikar, the media industry funding and support pillar of the company, will produce an Arabic version of the fun, educational series, ‘Driver Dan’s Story Train’.

The company, formed by the Abu Dhabi government last year, was searching for a TV channel in the Middle East to air the programme, which should appear sometime in 2010, company CEO Tony Orsten, told Arabian Business in an interview.

The English series will appear in the spring of 2010 in the UK on the BBC’s flagship children’s channel CBeebies.

“With the deal to co-produce ‘Driver Dan’s Story Train’, twofour54 is taking its first steps towards establishing a sustainable media and content industry in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region,” said Orsten.

In addition, the company has launched ibtikar ventures, the first dedicated MENA-based media and entertainment investment fund, offering grants ranging from $500,000 to $5m to entrepreneurs and businesses in the industry needing start-up funds or growth capital.  

In return they will have to base themselves at twofour54, with the aim of creating a diversified Arabic content creation sector serving the broader region.

An animation and live action series, ‘Driver Dan’s Story Train’ is intended to introduce young, pre-school age children to storytelling and reading books.

twofour54 had “trawled” the globe to find a partner in the production industry as it looked to create an Arabic production aimed at children in the Arab world, he said.

With increasing and improving the levels of literacy amongst Arabic speaking children a priority in many MENA countries, the show would provide a vehicle upon which to build an early reading programme, he said.

The deal includes twofour54 ibtikar sourcing and producing original stories from Arab authors with live action footage of children responding and play-acting to the story constituted as a key part of the show format.

Arab animators who have been on vocational training courses at twofour54 tadreeb, the company’s vocational training academy, will be given work placements and internships in order to gain hands-on experience working with 3Line in the UK.

The series will be produced using twofour54 intaj’s production and post-production facilities in Abu Dhabi.

twofour54 ibtikar provides media and entertainment industry funding and support for start-up and early stage businesses and individuals with creative ideas.

ibtikar creative lab, another source of funding from the company, will launch later this year to provide grant funding on a not-for-profit basis ranging from $1,000 to $50,000, primarily to UAE nationals, for ideas across all media platforms demonstrating exceptional creativity and originality.

Launched by the Abu Dhabi government as part of its 2030 plan, twofour54 seeks to diversify the Emirate’s economy and establish the emirate as the cultural capital of the Middle East.

The company aims to establish in Abu Dhabi a sustainable Arabic media and entertainment content creation industry, which would act as an internationally-renowned regional centre of excellence.

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