Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Sony Buys a Cartoon Studio?

The trade papers tell us:

Sony Pictures Television (SPT) has acquired Silvergate Media, a company that focuses on developing, producing and licensing children’s animation, for $195 million. ...

Sony was deep into television animation in the '90s, so I'm not sure what gives here.

Adelaide Productions was launched by Columbia Pictures Television (part of Sony) in the spring of 1993. It grew from a small division doing a couple of tv cartoon series to one of the biggest animation facilities in L.A. County.

By the turn of the century, they were headquartered in a large warehouse on what used to be the backlot of the Selznick studio. They were turning out lots of shows, everything from Godzilla, Channel Umptee 3, Jackie Chan Adventures, and Men In Black, to Dilbert, Starship Troopers, Dragon Tales,Max Steel and Sammy (among a number of others.)

For a few years, they were one of the biggest animation employers in town.

By and by, the studio fell on difficult times and shrank in size. Sony has no corporate-owned media outlets, so it doesn't have a ravenous distribution network to feed. That might be part of it. As of this year, Adelaide Productions hasn't made a new cartoon series since 2009, yet the company maintains it's active.

So if it's still an ongoing enterprise, why is the parent company buying anew animation company?

2 comments:

  1. Hello!
    I know this question can look off topic, but did you have, or did you know, any news or rumors or any kind of information about any cartoon from cartoon network?
    I know i may be impatient about this, but im looking about new seasons rumors, cartoons ending their production, and that kind of stuff.

    ReplyDelete