Uki Conquers International Market
With dropping revenues from music sales, record companies are scrambling to diversify. Motivated by earlier successful experiments, Universal Music’s managing director Patrick Busschots has mined gold with the animated series Uki, soon to be seen Europe-wide and beyond.
Uki is the brainchild of designers at the Leuven-based graphic design company Topfloor, which in 2004 was commissioned by Busschots to design a number of kids’ characters with the idea to develop a 3D animated series.
A year later, Zaventem-based music label ARS teamed up with Ghent’s 3D animation company Creative Conspiracy to further develop the project. Together with Diane Redmond, storyboard writer for the animated series Bob de Bouwer (Bob the Builder), they fine-tuned the Uki concept, which is designed for kids ages one to four. A trial episode was made for TV trade fairs and pulled down an award at the Kidscreen Summit in New York in 2008.
When Universal Music Belgium took over ARS Productions in 2007, Busschots started to lobby, and, after 18 months later of market research, the multinational decided to finance the project.
To date, 26 five-minute Uki episodes have been produced and another 26 will be ready by the end of the year. Uki is a happy little bug-like character who lives in a forest. Each episode is a new adventure with his friends.
Universal Music presented the “kidcom” to its worldwide affiliates, who have been negotiating with their local TV stations. It has been running since April on Flemish broadcaster VRT’s Ketnet, RTLTVi in Wallonia and Finnish MTV3. In September, Uki launches on Nickelodeon in Germany and the UK. Broadcasting deals have also been closed in Portugal, Australia, Poland, South Africa, India and Asia.
“Uki is a 100% Belgian production that’s conquering the world,” says Peter Decraene, director of business affairs at Universal Music Belgium.
“This type of entertainment is a great way to diversify, making use of our existing resources and contacts and adding revenue,” says Busschots. The sales revenue, he emphasises, “goes beyond the production and sales of the TV programmes – it’s the ‘secondary market’, the DVDs, books, merchandising. This is a very important source of income, comparable to what the music industry is generating.”