LONDON -- Barney the dinosaur with a British accent? It could happen -- the London-based Hit Entertainment has bought the company that produces the "Barney" series, Lyrick Corp., for $275 million.
"Our goal is to be the premier supplier of preschool programming throughout the world," Hit Entertainment CEO Peter Orton said.
Hit has sold made-in-England animated preschool series like "Bob the Builder" and "Kipper" to Nickelodeon and "Three Friends & Jerry" to Fox Family.
Barney's rich
At Lyrick, "Barney & Friends" has become a public-TV staple since its premiere on PBS in April 1992; the pubcaster has the show under contract through 2007. Over the years, Orton said, "Barney & Friends" has harvested about $3.5 billion from the sale of 55 million videos, 68 million books and 25 million plush toys.
The merger of Lyrick, a private company based in Dallas, and the publicly traded Hit qualifies as a reverse takeover as Hit is smaller than Lyrick, which includes the subsidiaries Big Feats and Lyons Partnership, where "Barney" began.
One of the first casualties of the merger, Orton said, will be Lyrick's publishing division, which Hit will shut down, throwing 80 people out of work. Orton says that Hit has signed a deal with Scholastic Books, which has agreed to put up a seven-figure guarantee to produce and distribute all future publications derived from characters owned by Lyrick and Hit.
Hungry for more
Hit, valued at $584 million, relies on "Bob the Builder" for about 60% of its sales. Company, which had not engineered an acquisition in 11 years, is now on the prowl, seeking to add still more producers. One possible target is the Jim Henson Co., now part of Germany's troubled EM.TV. Previously, Hit held unsuccessful talks with Gullane, formerly called Britt Allcroft and home to Thomas the Tank Engine.
Orton said the Barney character has not caught on outside the U.S. and Canada, a situation Hit hopes to rectify. Hit wants eventually to play in the same preschool sandbox, Orton said, as Disney's "Winnie the Pooh," CTW's "Sesame Street," Nelvana's "Arthur," Nickelodeon's "Blues Clues" and the BBC's "Teletubbies."
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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