<\/p>\n
Academy-award nominated French studio Xilam Animation, behind \u201cI Lost My Body,\u201d has closed a raft of licensing deals on its new flagship CG-animated preschool show \u201cPiggy Builders,\u201d commissioned by the BBC, France T\u00e9l\u00e9visions and ZDF.<\/p>\n
New broadcasters on board take in Warner Bros. Discovery in Italy, SVT in Sweden, Yle in Finland, VRT Ketnet in Flemish Belgium, T\u00e9l\u00e9quebec in French Canda and RTS in Switzerland.<\/p>\n
More from Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n At this week\u2019s prime French TV market, the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Le Havre, Xilam Animation\u2019s sales team led by executive vice president distribution Safaa Benazzouz will be negotiating further deals on the 52-part, 11-minute show, while newly appointed licensing agent France TV Distribution will focus on France, Belgium and Switzerland.<\/p>\n \u201cSince introducing \u201cPiggy Builders\u201d to the international market, the response across the board has been fantastic, firstly with BBC, France T\u00e9l\u00e9visions and ZDF jointly boarding the series, and now welcoming a range of additional leading broadcasters into the fold,\u201d said Benazzouz. \u201cWe\u2019re very much looking forward to seeing our little piggies entertain young audiences and their families around the world, through their humorous adventures and charming stories of teamwork.\u201d<\/p>\n Helmed by Romain Villemaine (\u201cRicky Zoom,\u201d \u201cMaya the Bee\u201d) the charming piggy trio Cornelia, Cesar and Charlie, who live in a Fine Forest and share their love for building and problem solving, had their first encounter with U.K. preschool kids July 28 when it first launched on CBeebies and BBC iPlayer. Jointly-ordered by France T\u00e9l\u00e9visions and Super RTL in Germany, the 52 x 11\u2019 2D animated series follows young dolphin Jim and his underwater friends in a whirlwind journey across land and sea, aboard the world\u2019s first-ever submarine on wheels. The series, for 6-9s, will be delivered second quarter 2026.<\/p>\n Among returning brands, the short-form non-dialogue comedy \u201cWhere\u2019s Chicky,\u201d ordered by France T\u00e9l\u00e9visions for a fourth season, was recently completed by Xilam\u2019s CGI specialist studio Cube Creative Productions. The cute little chick, created by William Hoareau, has turned into a massive digital hit for Xilam, with 6.3 billion views and 10 million subscribers on YouTube across the four seasons.<\/p>\n A proof of Xilam\u2019s enduring success with slapstick comedy, its most popular IP \u201cZig & Sharko\u201d boasts more than 37 million subscribers on YouTube, plus 20 billion views across eight dedicated channels worldwide. Olivier Jean-Marie\u2019s four-season show also ran successfully on Netflix and is now celebrating its 15th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary with a wide consumer-oriented merchandising campaign.<\/p>\n Both \u201cZig & Sharko\u201d Season 3 and \u201cWhere\u2019s Chicky\u201d were honored at the Unifrance TV Export Awards, grabbing the best-selling French audiovisual program in the animation category in 2024 and in 2022 respectively.<\/p>\n Benazzouz said attending the annual TV showcase of French programs, organized by the French promotional body Unifrance, \u201chas become a tradition.\u201d It\u2019s a great way to kick off our market season, and the event offers us an ideal opportunity to meet with both new and existing partners,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Headed by CEO Marc du Pontavice, Xilam\u2019 Animation\u2019s strong toon offer for kids and adults covers more than 2,800 TV episodes and three feature films, including the Oscar-nominated \u201cI Lost My Body\u201d by J\u00e9r\u00e9my Clapin which was acquired by Netflix following its top win at Cannes Critics\u2019 Week 2019.<\/p>\n The Unifrance Rendez-Vous runs over Sept. 1-5 in the major French port-city of Le Havre.<\/p>\n Best of Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Academy-award nominated French studio Xilam Animation, behind \u201cI Lost My Body,\u201d has closed a raft of licensing deals on its new flagship CG-animated preschool show \u201cPiggy Builders,\u201d commissioned by the BBC, France T\u00e9l\u00e9visions and ZDF. New broadcasters on board take in Warner Bros. Discovery in Italy, SVT in Sweden, Yle in Finland, VRT Ketnet in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1990784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[344821,359620,23919,359616,359618,359617,359621,359619,328922,359615],"class_list":["post-1990783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bbc-iplayer","tag-flemish-belgium","tag-france","tag-france-televisions","tag-piggy-builders","tag-safaa-benazzouz","tag-tv-market","tag-unifrance","tag-warner-bros-discovery","tag-xilam-animation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/\u2018I-Lost-My-Body-Producer-Xilam-Animation-Broadens-Euro-TV.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1990783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1990784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1990783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1990783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1990783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cPiggy Builders\u201d is headlining Xilam\u2019s Unifrance Rendez-Vous slate, together with its other preschool original comedy \u201cSubmarine Jim\u201d from Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Martin, creator of Xilam\u2019s hit brand \u201cOggy Oggy.\u201d<\/p>\n