Al Jazeera Children's Channel Licenses Disney Shows, FIlms

6:56 AM PDT 3/13/2013 by Georg Szalai

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The deal will bring such hits as "Cars," "Phineas and Ferb" and "Zeke and Luther" to millions of homes in the Middle East and North Africa.

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The Al Jazeera Children’s Channel has reached a licensing deal for popular kids and family films and TV content from Walt Disney's Middle East and North Africa unit.

The agreement covers Disney/Pixar movies, such as A Bug’s Life, Toy Story, Cars and Tangled, as well as Disney Channel live-action and animated series, such as Phineas and Ferb, Kim Possible and Zeke and Luther. It will bring the content to millions of homes in the Middle East and North Africa via the pan-Arabic network.

Financial terms of the multi-year deal weren't disclosed. The channel, which targets children ages 7-15, will dub all content into classical Arabic and roll it out in the coming months.

The Al Jazeera kids channel, also known as JCC, is owned by Al Jazeera and managed by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. It recently also struck a programming agreement with BBC Worldwide.

JCC acting executive general manager Haya bint Khalifa Al Nassr said the Disney deal will be a starting point for an "exciting content transformation, considering the aspirations, culture and identity of our Arab audience."

He added: “Through this agreement, we at JCC look forward to enriching the first Arab children’s channel with a wide range of entertaining shows for our audience. In line with our child-centric strategy, we will continue to address the needs of Arab children and households by creating or acquiring content that is entertaining, culturally appropriate and supports their learning and development."

Didier Vanneste, Walt Disney Company country manager, Middle East and North Africa, said: “We continually look for opportunities to bring our hit stories and beloved characters to wider local audiences, and look forward to working with JCC to deliver this broad range of popular kids and family programming to viewers across the Middle East”.

JCC was launched in Sept. 2005. It says it strives to reach Arab children and "preserve Arab cultural identity and instill the values for a promising and talented generation."

Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com
Twitter: @georgszalai