1958 promo for ''Day in Court''


Promo, consisting of stills and narration, for “Day in Court”, a daytime series aired on the American Broadcasting Company. I suppose it probably wasn’t as trashy as modern court shows. Anyone know anything about it?

Ann Sheridan in "Beginner's Luck" (1951)


Short dramatic sketch about a two people who meet at a nightclub. This aired live on 21 November 1951. This is from the “Kate Smith Evening Hour”. Unfortunately, the series is largely lost.

Kate Smith sings ''Bless This House'' (1951)


Kate Smith’s contribution to the thanksgiving season. Aired live on 21 November 1951 on “The Kate Smith Evening Hour”, a series which mainly exists as fragments.

''The Whispering of the Flowers'' – Lacalle's Orchestra


The recording was issued in 1910 on Indestructible Records, and is combined with publicity photos of actresses and such. The photos are from the April 1912 edition of “Red Book Magazine”. Composed by Franz von Blon. Audio from the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive.

Andrés Menza and THU

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A new THU Tales profile, this time for artist Andres Menza.

One of Japan’s leading kids channel, Kids Station expands its horizon with original IPs and digital media

This year, for the first time, Content Tokyo observed the entry of Kids Station, one of the leading kids channel in Japan, and boy did they come with a motive. Having four IPs in their kitty which are running successfully on air, Kids Station finally decided to market their IPs at the content market to attract more eyeballs and spread their merchandising line.

Kids Station, COO Takayuki Yamanaka

Takayuki Yamanaka

“Being a kids content channel, though the the population of Japan is going down, just like what we are currently witnessing in China or Korea, parents spending money on their kids is going up. The money which is being generated by parents for their children is taking an upward sign and there’s no stopping to that. “

These are the words of Kids Station, COO and GM – IP business development, Takayuki Yamanaka as he goes on to assert that they are not pessimistic about the kids content market.

Speaking about their channel’s business, he says, “In order to make business for a paid channel like us, the watching time doesn’t matter as long as the family picks the channel. The criteria for us is how we maintain the subscribers and make new business apart from broadcasting shows. That’s why we started coming up with our own IPs and merchandising lines. One of the solution to stay in business is by widening our horizon and not limiting it to the broadcast space. Currently 15 to 20 per cent of the shows broadcasted on Kids Station are owned by us. So how can we broaden that possibility and sell TV programme to abroad? That’s our new challenge. This exhibition has been going on since more than five years, but it’s out first time here because we thought we are the broadcasting guys but we recently changed our approach and started concentrating more on own IP rather than the broadcasting content. “

Kids Station, IPs

The IPs owned by Kids Station are Cocomong (relatively new IP), Happy Clapping Time (seven to eight years old), Fruity Samurai (six years old) and Papan Ga Panda (four years old). Yamanaka goes on to mention that it becomes easier for them to strike a deal with a merchandiser or a possible collaborator with their own IP. How? Since the IPs are owned by them and one or two other companies, it becomes uncomplicated for them to meet the consensus as they can do whatever they want to with these characters.

“Foreign companies are really focusing on the Fruity Samurai whereas Japanese merchandising companies are interested in collaborating for Papan Ga Panda. Food manufactures on the other hand are more keen with Cocomong as the main and sub characters are made out of food; sausages and cucumber / carrots respectively. Other than that Happy Clapping Time is a mixture of animation and live action which means we do singing and dancing with kids so companies interested in events want to collaborate with that,” comments Yamanaka.

Just like the Indian market, in Japan as well, the preschool kids rule the kids market as Happy Clapping Time is the most watched show on Kids Station. What makes Kids Station a bit different from the leading kids channel NHK-ETV is the fact that they are shifting their content more towards entertainment as the latter focuses more on edutainment / education. Being a paid channel, Kids Station has about 8 million subscribers which might be a quarter or 20 per cent of the free channel subscribers.

They key time for the channel is 7:30 in the morning and it targets one hour as Happy Clapping Time with mixture of short content as the attention span of kids is limited. So the channel combines a lot of fun and entertainment content in this one hour and repeats the same thing at 9:30 am. “Our target is from 7:30 am to 8:30 am as this one hour can be concentrated on elementary kids and once they go to school, it’s time for mom and preschool kids which means that we get to repeat the same content from 9:30 am to 10:30 am.”

The IPs owned by Kids Station are telecasted only during the morning time and Saturdays and Sundays. The age group from 0 to 6 watch the TV the most (Happy Clapping Time) and next to that is 7 to 9 year group(Yo-kai Watch) whereas beyond 10 years old kids, they like animation linked to boy toys. About 60 per cent of subscribers of Kids Station are boys and the remaining 40 per cent being girls.

Kids Station, booth

Kids Station booth at Content Tokyo 2016

In late 2014, the channel ventured into the digital media space with YouTube and recently a few months back came up with their own smartphone app. “We came across an interesting observation. We used to think that the main time for kids to watch shows was morning, however what happened was we observed that for these singing and dancing shows, the subscribed time was night time. It was highly possible that the mom was showing kids these shows while they were off to sleep and this was totally unexpected. What we deduced from it was, maybe with the big screen, the core time would be in the morning wherein all the family members are coming in and looking at it together. But after that, they use smartphone app to see it in other rooms or different time of day”, an excited Yamanaka exclaimed.

Currently on the smartphone app, Happy Clapping Time is being viewed the most. The app showcases the content owned by the channel and since it’s a paid app, no advertisements can be seen. So far it has 600 to 700 subscribers. The channel is targeting 10,000 to 20,000 in one year.

“Right now YouTube is being watched more as it’s for free. So if a series has 20 to 30 episodes, we just upload three to four episodes and if one wants to watch more then we just guide them to the contract.”

How different is the content on the app from TV? “A typical kind of animation is 15 to 30 minutes per episode. But we understand, we can’t do the same with app as the content is being watched on a smaller screen. So, for the app, maximum three or five minutes of content can be seen, whereas for TV programme we target a 30 minutes programme or an animation movie which is more like 90 minutes or more.”

There are about 55 personnel employed at Kids Station and as for the animators, the channel has partnership with about 10 to 20 companies.

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Jon Stewart will be churning animated news parody for HBO

It was already a known fact that Jon Stewart has signed an exclusive production deal of four years with HBO last year. Till now, it was not clear about what kind of content will Stewart be creating or featuring in.

Now, during the TCA (Television Critics Association) summer press tour, HBO, president of programming, Casey Bloys revealed some information about the upcoming features of Jon Stewart in regards to the channel.

“The idea is it will be an animated parody of a cable news network with an Onion-like portal,” said Bloys and added, “It’s very much Jon’s voice and tone.” This means, Stewart will be releasing multiple short-form content through various digital platforms of HBO. There might also be a linear television segment.

Jon Stewart

Bloys also informed that “He is opening an animation studio” and hoped that the content from Stewart will be rolling out around September to October and, we guess that it would be before the presidential elections of the USA.

Earlier, HBO had acquired a stake in Otoy, the 3D graphics organisation where Stewart will be carrying out his work for this project. “To develop new technology that will allow him to produce timely, current-events-focused short-form digital content, which will be refreshed on HBO NOW, multiple times throughout the day,” said Bloys.

“The idea that Jon wants to do and why he wants to do animation is because it allows him to comment in real time on what is happening in the day’s news events,” said Bloys. However, it is yet unknown what kind of animated project it would be, but we do know that he wants “to comment in real time with what’s happening in the day’s news,” and that “It will be simple animation”.

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DreamWorks channel arrives in MENA for the first time

DreamWorks Animation channel will be launched in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for the first time. beIN Network and DreamWorks Animation have joined hands to kick start this venture with the new channel joining beIN’s service package on 1 August, 2016.

The 24-hour Dreamworks Channel, which launched in the Asia Pacific region in July 2015, will be broadcast in Arabic. However, an option to view in English will also be available.

The channel will aim at expanding DreamWorks reach in MENA region with signature series, such as Dragons: Race to the Edge, Dinotrux, All Hail King Julien, The Adventures of Puss in Boots, and Dawn of the Croods. The channel will also present a daily morning preschool block, featuring Guess with Jess, Roary the Racing Car, and Little Red Tractor.

How to train your dragon

beIN MEDIA Group, executive VP, Yousef Mohammed Al-Obaidly said, “DreamWorks will be launched for the first time in the Middle East and North Africa. We seek to meet the needs of our large audience of children in the region and our goal is to provide educational and entertaining services to children and families through our designated channels. We are preparing for more partnership with DreamWorks.”

beIN Media Group was incorporated in January 2014 with its headquarters at Doha, Qatar. In January 2016 beIN Media Group secured an agreement with Turner Broadcasting System, allowing it exclusive rights to broadcast a number of Turner-licensed entertainment and news channels across the Middle East and North Africa. Apart from this, beIN Sports is a major part of the group and showcases long hours of sports content.

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Chick-fil-a History Icons Not Crazy

Chick-fil-A’s new ad campaign features six different history icons who became successful against all odds even though their ideas and inventions were considered “crazy” during their time. Six Chick-fil-a history icons are featured: Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Ludwig van Beethoven, Amelia Earhart, Michelangelo, and Susan B Anthony. The campaign promotes the new Egg White Grill breakfast, mixing history lessons with pop culture, noting: “Chicken for breakfast, it’s not as crazy as you think.”

Chick-fil-a History Icons - Thomas Edison

Chick-fil-a History Icons Credits

The Chick-fil-a History Icons campaign was developed at Erich & Kallman by creative director Eric Kallman, managing director Steve Erich, account head Kate Higgins and executive producer Laura Ferguson.

Filming was shot by director Harold Einstein via dummy. with executive producer Eric Liney, director of photography Jonathan Freeman and production designer Patrick Lamb.

Editor was Dave Anderson at Arcade Edit with assistant editor Laurel Smoliar, executive producer Sila Soyer, and senior producer Gavin Carroll.

Colour was produced at Company 3 by senior colour artist Tim Masick and senior producer Rochelle Brown. Finishing was done at Ntropic by executive creative director Nathan Robinson, lead Flame artist Steve Zourntos, Flame artist Matt Tremaglio, senior producer Emily Avoujageli, assistant Yvonne Pon and Gillen Burch.

Sound was produced at One Union by sound engineer Joaby Deal and producer Lauren Mask. Music, “Pugs on a Rug”, was performed by Andrew Sherman and Max Schad, produced at Butter by senior producer Ryan Faucett.