The media investor Haim Saban said Wednesday that he had bought back the rights to his biggest franchise, “Power Rangers,” from The Walt Disney Company, and had licensed the show to Nickelodeon, the children’s cable channel owned by Viacom.
Executives at Saban and Viacom said in interviews that they intended to reinvigorate the nearly 20-year-old franchise, a one-time sensation among children that features costumed teenagers who save the world.
“Power Rangers” is the first acquisition by Mr. Saban’s new brands and licensing division. Mr. Saban, who made most of his fortune in children’s entertainment and now owns a big stake in Univision, announced last week that his Saban Capital Group would put $500 million into Saban Brands, a new company dedicated to acquiring entertainment and consumer brands and exploiting them through retail, television and film channels.
“The list is very, very long for things we’re going to do” with the “Power Rangers,” Mr. Saban said.
The “Power Rangers” program was most prominent in the mid-1990s when it was shown on Fox, but it has remained in production ever since, and an 18th season is in development now. That season will make its debut on Nickelodeon in the first quarter of 2011, the channel said. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the multiyear deal.
The franchise came to Disney in 2001 as part of the purchase from Saban and Fox of what is now the ABC Family cable channel. At first Disney had high hopes for the franchise, exploring deep licensed products lines and even a feature film. But focus group research soured Disney on them. Mothers, the research showed, disliked the violence — particularly the hand-to-hand combat — that is part of the franchise’s D.N.A. Ultimately, Disney decided not to brand the Power Rangers as a Disney product, which made the franchise something of a black sheep at the company.
Mr. Saban said he felt that Disney “did not develop the property and exploit it in the way that it deserves.”
Disney had been quietly shopping the franchise for more than a year, with efforts heating up after the acquisition of Marvel in August. Now flush with boy-centric characters – apparently moms don’t feel the same way about the violence involved with characters like Iron Man – Disney’s interest in the Power Rangers faded even further.
Cyma Zarghami, Nickelodeon’s president, said the violence was a “nonissue,” calling the show “more martial artsy and campy than anything else.”
Elie Dekel, a former licensing and merchandising executive at 20th Century Fox who is leading the Saban Brands effort, said he would seek to restore the “Power Rangers” to a place of pop culture ubiquity.
The company, which would not divulge any potential acquisitions, will have to move fast as other companies aggressively mine the branding and licensing turf. The Iconix Brand Group, for instance, has become a force in this arena, recently snapping up the Peanuts franchise from E.W. Scripps for about $175 million in cash.
Separately, Saban said Wednesday that it had renewed a licensing pact with Bandai America for “Power Rangers” toys.
Noting that one of Nickelodeon’s digital channels, Nicktoons, would be broadcasting reruns of “Power Rangers” — there are 700 episodes in the program’s library — Mr. Dekel said that “for much of the audience, they will be brand new.”
April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli start-up Qlipso acquired for an undisclosed sum the assets of video-delivery Web site Veoh Networks, giving the two-year-old content platform access to millions of users and an advertising revenue stream.
Qlipso’s platform allows users to invite friends to watch together sports, movies, video clips and television shows, while chatting and controlling a personal avatar. Veoh posts content from Time Warner Inc., Funimation Productions Ltd. and CBS Corp, among others.
Veoh announced in February that it was bankrupt and its assets would be sold off to repay creditors. In a blog post on Feb. 11, Chief Executive Officer Dmitry Shapiro said the company had tens of millions of users.
Qlipso’s CEO Jon Goldman, who sold his gaming company Foundation 9 Entertainment to Francisco Partners in 2006 for an undisclosed sum, says the merger may allow the new company to add a revenue stream in virtual goods that would enhance Qlipso personal avatars.
“We will not be focused just on cool videos, but on making the experience more social,” Goldman said in a phone interview. “It will be the sort of thing you do in multiplayer social worlds.”
According to Virtual Goods Industry Forecast 2010, posted by Engage Digital Media, the virtual goods market is set to grow to as much as $2 billion this year.
