Old Favourites, New Screens: Why Classic Brands Are Back in Demand
Older characters are still among the safest bets in television and film, according to executives who met at MIPCOM, the content market in Cannes. Deadline reported on a roundtable called "Hiding in Plain Sight: The Untapped Value of Legacy IP", held on the yacht of ACF, a global media and entertainment investment bank.
"Legacy IP" means older brands with a long history. IP, or intellectual property, is the term for the characters, stories and names a company owns. The roundtable brought together franchise creators, rights holders (the companies that own and license those characters), buyers, analysts and technology experts. Their question was how to bring classic content back to life for new audiences.
The numbers behind the pitch came from Parrot Analytics, a firm that measures audience demand, meaning how much people seek out and engage with a title. Parrot calculated that TV shows based on existing IP have three and a half times the demand of shows that are not. For movies, it put the figure at four times.
Some of the examples at the table are familiar to many families. Keith Chapman created Bob the Builder and PAW Patrol. A new Bob the Builder movie is in the works, more than 25 years after the character first appeared. The PAW Patrol TV series will soon reach 800 episodes, and the PAW Patrol movies have grossed over $500 million at the box office. Merchandise sales for the franchise have reached double-digit billions of dollars, Deadline reported.
WildBrain, a Canadian company, was represented by Stephanie Betts, its Chief Content Officer. The company holds classic brands including Strawberry Shortcake, Inspector Gadget, Degrassi and Yo Gabba Gabba! It bought a majority stake in Peanuts in 2017 and later sold its remaining stake to Sony. WildBrain makes Peanuts shows for Apple TV.
BBC Studios brought its own catalogue. Shelley Macintyre, its CEO for Brands and Licensing, oversees IP including BBC Earth, Top Gear and Doctor Who. Doctor Who is more than 60 years old. The franchise now runs well beyond the main show, including The Whoniverse Show, a digital series on YouTube, and Doctor Who: Circuit Breaker, a multiplatform project that spans more than one kind of screen.
What links these examples is a shift in how older shows are used. A brand that already has fans can be introduced to a new generation through a short online series, a film, or a toy line, and each step can reach a different audience. For a studio, that means a character with a known name is easier to pitch than a new one.
For the people who make these shows, the change matters in a practical way. A revived series means work for writers, animators, actors and crews, and a reboot can put a dormant franchise back into production. Whether a particular revival will find its audience is something the coming seasons will show.
