Xilam Animation Makes Waves with Zig & Sharko Season Four Sales

M6-Gulli, Discovery, DeA kids, Nickelodeon, VRT and Nova board
upcoming fourth season of beloved slapstick comedy series

Xilam to debut first episode to buyers at MIPCOM

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News:

Xilam Animation (ISIN Code: FR0004034072, Mnemonic: XIL) (Paris:XIL), an independent company for the production and distribution of animated programmes, Academy Award®-nominated, has secured its first wave of deals for the upcoming fourth season of its iconic non-dialogue slapstick comedy series Zig & Sharko (78 x 7’), as the company prepares to debut the first episode to buyers at MIPCOM. Launching in September 2023, season four has been acquired by longstanding partner Gulli (France), which has also renewed its partnership across the previous three seasons. Additionally, Xilam has sold the new instalment to existing partners, VRT (Belgium), Discovery (Italy), DeA (Italy), Nickelodeon (India) and Nova (Israel).

Zig & Sharko continues to generate impressive ratings internationally, particularly in India where the series resulted in Nickelodeon becoming the leading children’s channel in its evening slot, across all demos. In Q2 2022, Zig & Sharko was also the fourth best performing series among children aged 2-14 years and outperformed its lead in and lead out shows in all demos in terms of ratings.

Xilam has also established an extensive audience for Zig & Sharko on YouTube, where the series has generated 14.2BN lifetime views, with 8.4M daily global views and 26.7M total subscribers. On social media, the brand now has 1.1M TikTok followers and 9.3M views are associated with #zigandsharko, while on Facebook the series was viewed for 727.4M minutes in 2021.

On the high seas, the beach or an ocean liner, Zig, a hungry hyena has one thing in mind: dining on Marina, the carefree mermaid. With help from Bernie, a genius hermit-crab, he comes up with the zaniest plans to capture her … but that’s forgetting Sharko, the shark with rippling muscles who will do anything to protect his mermaid honey! The new fourth season will surprise audiences, as they watch Zig, Sharko and Bernie make their way back to their island, accompanied by Marina - who fans will see growing her very own legs thanks to magical sandals.

Morgann Favennec, EVP Distribution at Xilam Animation, said: “Zig & Sharko is a core part of Xilam’s legacy for creating non-dialogue slapstick comedy series that successfully capture the hearts of multiple generations of fans all around the world. As we gear up for MIPCOM 2022, it’s fantastic to already have an array of leading broadcasters on board for Zig & Sharko’s fourth season, and we’re very much looking forward to introducing further buyers to the upcoming instalment, which promises even more hilarious and playful adventures for the show’s broad and highly engaged international fan base.”

About Xilam
As a major player in the animation industry, Xilam is an integrated studio founded in 1999 that creates, produces and distributes original programmes in more than 190 countries for children and adults, broadcast on television and on SVoD (Netflix, Disney+, Amazon, NBC Universal, etc.) and AVoD (YouTube, Facebook, etc.) platforms. With a global reputation for creativity and its capacity for innovation, an editorial and commercial expertise at the forefront of its industry, Xilam is positioned as a key player in a fast-growing market. Each year, Xilam, builds on its real successes and capitalises on powerful historical brands (Oggy and the Cockroaches, Zig & Sharko, Chicky, etc.) and new brands (Oggy Oggy in the pre-school sector, Mr. Magoo, Trico, etc.) which are consolidating and expanding a significant catalogue of more the 2,700 episodes and 3 feature films including the Oscar-nominated I Lost My Body. Xilam has unique GCI skills. Xilam employs more than 500 people, including 400 artists, across its studios in Paris, Lyon,
Angoulême and Hô-Chi-Minh in Vietnam. Xilam is listed on Euronext Paris Compartment B - PEA - SRD long Eligibility