Leading Russian animation company Riki Group has teamed up with Alibaba Group’s Youku Kids will jointly produce three seasons of preschool series Tina & Tony for the Chinese audience.
Lu Ye, Youku Kids producer: ‘We are very pleased to have achieved a long-term cooperative relationship and we hope that through the joint efforts, Tina & Tony can become a global brand’.Alibaba will make long-term investment and operations. After ensuring the broadcast effect and making the program known to more people in China, business cooperation in the industry will also be fully launched.
‘As a hit on the Youku channel, the original series has earned its reputation not in one day, and the popularity of our events among children and parents shows their dedication and trust to this project and brand. Youku Kids always strives to provide only high-quality content for Chinese families, the Tina & Tony from its inception to development, has consistently embodies the values and social responsibility’, adds Lu Ye.
After the huge success of the series in November 2018, a new season was jointly produced to be delivered in July 2021. Tina and Tony performed excellently again surpassing all other animated projects on the platform in terms of popularity index. The number of total views to date is more than 2,5 billion.
For the upcoming seasons, producers have defined the most relevant topics for the target audience. ‘Our characters promote positive and safe behavior. Learning through play and healthy relationships with adults are two topics of preschooler’s interest that we’ve chosen for the next season. We plan to deliver 52×5’, 3D/2D animated episodes by July 2023. We are delighted to see the development of cooperation with Alibaba to bring Tina and Tony to China’, Mark Zavadskiy, CEO of RIKI Group.
