Viacom’s Nickelodeon Asia is set to become the first U.S. cable TV network to produce a made-in-China animation block of programming, scheduled to be launched in July- China Toon .
ChinaToon will show the one-hour, all-Mandarin-language block of cartoons in 13 territories, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
To premiere on July 5, ChinaToon will launch with Creative Power Entertaining’s Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf and Zhejiang Zhongnan Group Animation Video’s Magic Wonderland.
“Chinese-produced animation is now world-class, and it’s important to provide a springboard to launch it into the international marketplace,” added Mei Yan, the managing director of MTV Networks China and chief representative of Viacom Asia In China. “Creative Power Entertaining and Zhejiang Zhongnan Group Animation Video are two excellent examples of how efforts to nurture the Chinese animation industry has led to success in the development of locally-produced programming."
To continue supporting the Chinese animation industry, which is large and profitable, China is holding a nationwide contest, the China Cultural Heritage Comic Competition, to find outstanding cartoons and comics featuring its cultural heritages.
Initiated and organized by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH), the contest will run six months and is open to "anyone able to paint, write or use a computer."
China currently has up to 6,000 companies making cartoons and comics, with more than 200,000 people employed, the Ministry of Culture (MOC) said in March.
However, according to the MOC, about 85 percent of those companies are not yet profitable.
The exception was last year's "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf", a 6-million-yuan (about 877,000 U.S. dollars) production telling the story of several goats fighting their enemy, Big Big Wolf, who covets fresh mutton for his family.
The film made 8 million yuan on its opening day and some 80 million yuan within three weeks.
Of the 16 animated films China made last year, only the goat and wolf combination was a hit. One reason is that most people favor cartoons made in other countries.
A poll done by the China Youth Daily in November 2008 showed that only 14.2 percent of the nearly 3,000 people polled liked Chinese cartoons the most.
In contrast, about 62.4 percent of respondents said their favorite animated films were U.S.-made. Another 45.9 percent chose films from Japan.
