Sad news in the UK...

[BoyRaisin2]

Not to change the subject too much, but what is this "Bambaloo" thing? Is this the project they did and/or doing with Yoram Gross-EM.TV?

So for Henson shows currently in production, it's just this and possibly Animal Jam?

 

[Luke]

So for Henson shows currently in production, it's just this and possibly Animal Jam?

Yeah they are the possibles, but i would bet it's neither. Bambaloo's schedule goes upto October so i'd imagine those have all been made, and not sure whether Animal Jam went beyond the intial season. It could be that the whole company has nothing in production right now aside from "Five Children & It" on the movie side. Luckily, they repeat stuff nowadays so much it doesn't notice.

Bambaloo's site is at :- http://www.bambaloo.com.au - it is indeed the EMTV co-production, haven't seen it but it looks like another one of Henson's attempts at being annoyingly politically correct and doing things as per child psychologist's instructions. Notice the quote - "It's a well known fact that kids love repetition". I agree, (it worked for the Teletubbies) but only to an extent - i don't think kids really want all the educational stuff right in their face, give them a fun, original show first, sneak the learning stuff in on the side. I think Henson of late have been doing it the wrong way around yet most of their hit shows over the years have been based on formats that don't use repetition so heavily and the stuff that has done well (Bear, Hoobs) have been the ones that had a bit more to them than the rigid educational formats.

 

[BoyRaisin2]

So who basically owns the rights to "Bambaloo"? Would it be YG-EM.TV or Henson? And, being as Australian children's show, I would imagine all the characters speaking in an Australian accent (if so that I'd gotta see )?

 

[BoyRaisin2]

Jim Henson chief axed after family buy-back
August 11, 2003 10:24am
Europe Intelligence Wire

The Jim Henson Company's top marketer from its UK operations is leaving following the re-acquisition of the company by the Henson family in May.

Matthew Webb, European marketing and brand manager, has been made redundant. Webb joined The Jim Henson Company in July 2001, having previously been brand marketing manager at Really Useful Games.

Jim Henson's head office in Los Angeles will now take charge of all marketing, licensing, television and PR for the company. Senior vice- president of marketing and home entertainment worldwide Michael Polis will head marketing.

An LA spokeswoman says the company is in its early stages of reorganisation and that the Henson family only took full control of the company in the past week.

The Henson family re-acquired the company in May from EM.TV & Merchandising for $78m (GBP48m) in cash. The company was founded in 1958 by Jim Henson but was sold to EM.TV & Merchandising in March 2000.

The assets of The Jim Henson Company acquired in the transaction include The Muppets and The Fraggles. The company's principal operations include Henson Television and Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

The Muppets celebrated its 25th anniversary last year with a major marketing campaign that included a tie-in with McDonald's Happy Meals range.

The promotion was supported by a national television campaign created by Leo Burnett (MW December 12, 2002).

--end--

BTW, auspiciously (sp?) missing from Henson.com's "company executives" page were key people from the UK (even John Stephenson from the Creature Shop). Hmmm...

 

[Beauregard]

Ok, maybe the whole thing hasn't shut down, my informat could have been wrong, but it does seem they are cutting down here in the UK.

 

[Luke]

It makes sense to cut back the UK admin people - licensing, PR etc as thats all stuff that can be easily done from the states. It's the management and the creative people that are critical to the UK side doing well. I think a lot of the TV people there are freelance anyway - so once they get some shows commisioned they'll build up again. As has been said, the company is in a transitional period and have a lot of ideas and concepts and things waiting to be unveiled once they get themselves together and go seek the deals they need.

 

[BoyRaisin2]

STOP PRESS: Jim Henson Company closes European operation
August 7, 2003 2:26pm
Europe Intelligence Wire

The Jim Henson Company has closed its European operation and made its marketing and licensing department redundant after being bought by the Henson family from EM.TV. European brands and marketing manager Matthew Webb is among those to have lost their job.

Publication: Marketing

Distributed by Financial Times Information Limited


Copyright © 2003 Marketing. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire.

 

[frogboy4]

This last article is still vague. Who's writing these things, Muppet monkeys? They start off with a specific title then recycle old information that we already know and barely touch upon the meat the title suggests. I hope the UK Creature Shop remains open, but there is no need for the licensors and television production at this time. I expected this restructuring. Everyone thought this would be some cake walk. Buy-outs from any company just don't work that way. Restructuring always goes on and Henson seems to want to make their new mark of the company. It's all good. It just bites that people have to lose their jobs.

 

[Luke]

With the TV production - the people who are critical are Pete Coogan, Angus Fletcher and Mellie Buse. The first two work in management anyway and Mellie i think (the writer of UK Henson stuff) is freelance so the real people who matter most will probably just relocate or maybe they are keeping the management there since they aren't specifically TV production...... i hope they aren't gone - they aren't listed at Henson.com but then again neither is Craig Allen (Henson interactive) so thats not a definitive list. Eitherway, it's still possible for Henson to still do what they have been doing in the UK from the states - remember they were going to shoot the New Muppet Show here and it'd work just the same, hiring a sound stage and just crewing up for the production. Depends what their plans are i guess - i hope they don't just scrap all their european pre-school plans and ideas.

I expect they are really unhappy about making this kind of move with the UK TV production seeing as it was always a safety blanket during Muppet down periods - probably just can't afford to keep the place open while they have nothing in production. I also expected a lot of restructuring and down-sizing. The companies been stripped bare enough but it seems that everything is gonna be streamlined even more just to the bare minimum as they have no cash and thats the sacrifice that came with the kids buying back the company. It's a shame they couldn't just lose Chaplin and have kept the London and NY offices. They don't really need big studios that they don't use much anyway - i was thinking maybe they will lose it too and just stay in New York but then again they have a 10 year lease and the Henson Company are paying the Henson Kids (even though its the same people) so it's probably not in their own personal financial interests for the company to give it up and they make the decisions. I wouldn't be expecting a Muppetfest in the next two years either if at all - they aren't gonna put money into anything that doesn't turn a big profit - it's all gonna be about making money from distributing and licensing for a while.

 

[muppet_dk]

As I can understand from those articles it's only the marketing and licensing department they are closing. Hopefully it's the only thing the are gonna close in the UK.

It's a shame they couldn't just lose Chaplin and have kept the London and NY offices. They don't really need big studios that they don't use much anyway.

I don't know much about the Chaplin studio. But a studio could be a good source of income if they could get some other than their own productions, produced their.