The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has announced that it will support the development of two animated projects with a new fund it set up last fall in partnership with Cartoon Forum and France Télévisions. 

A group of 15 public broadcasters/EBU members are contributing to the fund, which has around US$140,000 to offer. They also assessed the 70-plus TV concepts that were pitched at Cartoon Forum 2023, pre-selecting 10 for further consideration after the event, and then narrowing this shortlist down to a final two. 

The projects that will receive support this year are Ray & Ruby (52 x 11 minutes, pictured left) from Belgium’s Creative Conspiracy, featuring two adventurous mouse twins having fun in a sprawling castle; and Pig & Andersen (52 x 11 minutes, pictured right) from Denmark’s Fleng Entertainment, a comedy toon based on Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tales such as The Swineherd, in which a prince in disguise (watching over the Emperor’s pigs) tries to win over an arrogant princess.

Both producers will use the EBU financing to deliver pilots by September, at which point the participating broadcasters will decide if they want to proceed with commissioning the projects. France Télévisions (France), BBC (UK), ARD/SWR (Germany), DR TV (Denmark), VRT (Belgium), RTVE (Spain), YLE (Finland), RTÉ (Ireland), RAI (Italy), LTV (Latvia), NPO (Netherlands), NRK (Norway), RTP (Portugal), SVT (Sweden) and RTVS (Slovakia) are involved.

This joint funding effort comes at a crucial time for the kids media industry, which is grappling with widespread cutbacks to content financing. “This new initiative shows our members renewing a spirit of collaboration to secure the most exciting new content for young audiences in a competitive market,” noted EBU head of television Matthew Trustram in a release.