Lionsgate adds Little Tikes to family

Boosts studio to 15% market segment share

By Danny King -- Video Business, 5/29/2008

The first DVD will be released in the fall.

MAY 29 | Lionsgate will be the North American distributor of DVD and video-on-demand titles for MGA’s new Animated Little Tikes Entertainment label, whose first story will be released this fall.

Lionsgate distribution agreements with MGA date back to 2006, when the company started distributing direct-to-DVD features for the Bratz franchise.

Lionsgate has been building its family franchises. In March, the company announced an exclusive distribution agreement with U.K. publisher Hit Entertainment. Hit series such as Barney, Bob the Builder and Thomas & Friends had “well over $100 million” in U.S. DVD sales last year,” Lionsgate president Steve Beeks said in March.

With the Tikes agreement in place, Lionsgate will have about 15% of the North American family home entertainment market, up from about 9% before the agreement with Hit. That market share puts Lionsgate on par with Viacom’s Paramount Home Entertainment and Time Warner’s Warner Home Video, though it trails Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, according to Lionsgate.

“Little Tikes has demonstrated tremendous brand awareness and trust among parents that is certain to carry over into the DVD aisles,” said Anne Parducci, executive VP of marketing and family entertainment at Lionsgate, in a statement.

Overall, Lionsgate first-quarter DVD titles accounted for 9.1% of the $5.6 billion U.S. home entertainment market, placing it seventh behind such studios as Warner, Disney and News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, according to data compiled by Video Business and Rentrak.

In February, Lionsgate said DVD sales for its fiscal third quarter fell 7.5% to $105.1 million as titles such as Bratz and Skinwalkers failed to match revenue from late 2006 releases Akeelah and the Bee and An American Haunting. Lionsgate will releases earnings for the quarter ended March 31 tomorrow.

In December, Lionsgate became the exclusive U.S. distributor of MGA’s Bratz DVDs and video-on-demand and electronics titles, expanding on what had been a more limited theatrical and DVD output deal.

Lionsgate also releases on DVD Scholastic’s Clifford the Big Red Dog, American Greetings’ The Care Bears, Cookie Jar Entertainment’s The Doodlebops, Nelvana’s Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends as well as Speed Racer and the Marvel Animated Features series.

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