Studio 100 N.V. is a Belgian production and distribution company that specializes in kids and family entertainment content and operated their in-house animation studios such as their Australian animation company Flying Bark Productions and theme parks worldwide including their own international distribution division Studio 100 International alongside their main television channels such as Studio 100 TV. The headquarters of the company is in Schelle, along with offices in Breda, Munich, Paris, New York City, Sydney and Los Angeles.
History Studio 100 was founded on 29 March 1996 by Gert Verhulst, Danny Verbiest and Hans Bourlon. The three came together for seven years when they created the show Samson & Gert, in which Verhulst and Verbiest also starred. Samson & Gert started as a duo which announced television shows. Besides the production of their original show they started creating a new series called Kabouter Plop. Following the success of these two shows, the company expanded into new fields in 1999. Studio 100 produced their first movie that year, which was called The Gnome Treasure (De Kabouterschat in Dutch). Additionally, the company began to create the musical Assepoester, a Dutch spoken version of Cinderella. Studio 100 purchased a theme park and converted it to revolve around their IPs. For the latter three, they required co-funding from the Vlaamse Media Maatschappij. In 2002, they began to expand their offering when they acquired the girl group K3 from BMG.
In 2005, Danny Verbiest announced his retirement from Samson & Gert, but also as a shareholder of the company. The shares were bought by Verhulst and Bourlon, but a year later in October 2006, BNP Paribas Fortis Private Equity had brought a 33% stake in Studio 100 alongside its 50% stake in subsidiary Ded's IT Productions with its founders Verhulst and Bourlon diversted its shares of their company to BNP Fortis Provatw Equity. With the new ownership the company ventured into the international, non-Dutch speaking, market by copying their original shows in other languages and creating new shows like Bumba.
On 31 August 2006, Studio 100 expanded into the adult-focus production genre as it had brought a 50% stake in Belgian film and television production outfit DED's It Productions from its founders Dirk Verhoeye, Erik Gordts and David Ottenburgh. The acquisition of the entertainment production company DED'S It Productions became Studio 100's entry into the adult-focused programming genre as it became a joint-venture production sudsidiary between Studio 100 and its co-founders while it started producing series from Studio 100's girl pop and children's music franchise K3; Studio 100 would later bring full control of its Belgian joint-venture production subsidiary DED's It Productions 12 years later on October 23, 2018, by acquiring the remaining 50% shares, effectively became a fully-owned production subsidiary of Studio 100 while the studio DED's It Productions was later renamed simply Dedsit a year later in 2019.
In 2007, Studio 100 teamed up with VTech to create electronic toys, The Bumba toys are for 6–36 months, but the others are 3–6 years
Their international expansion took flight in 2008 when they founded a Belgian digital television channel called Studio 100 TV, and Studio 100 Media, a German division to sell their content to the international market. Over the next years, the company revamped the old classics they acquired and established a new cooking channel, called Njam!, in Belgium in 2010 and BeJunior in the Middle East and North Africa in 2016.
In July 2007, Studio 100 launched their own in-house global international distribution division based in Munich named Studio 100 Media to distribute Studio 100's productions worldwide with Studio 100 hiring general manager Patrick Elmendorff to head Studio 100's in-house global distribution division as their president.
On 26 February 2008 three months before Studio 100's acquisition of EM.Sport Media AG's German entertainment production division EM.Entertainment, Studio 100's Munich-based German international distribution division Studio 100 Media established a distribution partnership with Munich-based German entertainment production and distribution company EM.Sport Media AG under the latter's entertainment production division EM.Entertainment to distribute their entertainment portfolio including their classics such as Maya the Bee and Vic the Viking on TV, home entertainment and VOD platforms internationally excluding US, Germany, Australia, New Zealand.
In late-May 2008 following Studio 100's successful distribution partnership with EM.Sport Media AG's EM.Entertainment division under Studio 100's German international distribution division Studio 100 Media three months prior, Studio 100 announced that they have acquired EM.Sport Media AG's entertainment division EM.Entertainment and its library along with the latter's Australian entertainment and animation production studio Flying Bark Productions and their German television channel JuniorTV (which Studio 100 would eventually close in 2022) for €41 million in order for EM.Sport Media AG to focus on its sport activities, the acquisition of EM.Entertainment expanded Studio 100's kids and family programme library and gave Studio 100 their own Australia-based in-house entertainment & animation production studio and a German-language television channel as their first entry into the broadcasting industry outside of Belgium with Studio 100's global distribution division Studio 100 Media taken over EM.Entertainment's distribution library including Yoram Gross's animated productions such as Blinky Bill alongside EM.Entertainment's classic catalogue such as Maya the Bee and Vic the Viking and the library of Japanese animation studio Zuiyo bringing the two classic characters together under Studio 100 with the new owner launching new adaptations of the two classic shows.
Two months later in late-August 2008, Studio 100 announced their entry into the channel business by launching their own in-house music television channel in collaboration with Belgian cable TV provider Telenet named Studio 100 TV marking Studio 100's second owned television channel outside of Germany and their first one to be launched in Belgium with the new channel launched a month later in September of that same year, the new channel will run from 6:00am to 10:00pm every day with interactive segments alongside its music programmes and songs from the Studio 100 library and television specials relating to Christmas and going back to school.
One year later, on 12 February 2009 following Studio 100's acquisition of EM.Sport Media AG's entertainment production division EM. Entertainment and its Australian animation production studio Flying Bark Productions, Studio 100 announced that they have launched their in-house animation studio based in Paris, France named Studio 100 Animation to produce new and revamped adaptations of their existing catalogue including the classics that Studio 100 had acquired one year before such as the classics of both Maya the Bee and Vic the Viking alongside producing their original programmes with Jo Harris heading Studio 100's new in-house animation division. Five months later in late-July of that same year, Studio 100 announced that their global distribution division Studio 100 Media had acquired the entire rights to the Maya the Bee from the German public foundation Waldemar Bonsels Foundation.
In November 2010, Studio 100 further strengthened its theme park operations with the acquisition of Haßloch-based German theme park Holiday Park (which was closed back in October of that year) with Studio 100 placing the acquired German theme park under its subsidiary Plopsa with Holiday Park's MD Wolfgang Schneider would departure the German theme park Holiday Park while Studio 100 would reopen the park the following year in 2011.
In July 2012, Studio 100 announced that their head of global business development Jo Daris had exited the Belgian family entertainment company in order for him to launch a new career in real estate development in Asia with Studio 100's co-founder and CEO Hans Bourlon taking over as their new head of global business development.
In May 2013, Studio 100 through its German international distribution division Studio 100 Media announced the expansion of its parent company's activities into the movie business worldwide with the launch of their new film division dedicated to produce and distribute Studio 100's films in-house along with third-party movies named Studio 100 Film with its first production based on its famous characters Maya the Bee: The Movie following the success of Studio 100's animation division's adaptation of the TV series of the same name with the new division securing international distribution for their first movie.
On 4 February 2014, Studio 100 announced the launching of their new digital entertainment division dedicated to Studio 100's reach to release its programmes on digital platforms and named former BBC Worldwide head of digital entertainment executive Tom Reding to head Studio 100's new digital division as their head of digital entertainment.
In late-January 2017 nine years after the acquisition of EM.Sport Media AG's German mids and family production and distribution EM.Entertainment including its German TV channel Junior and Australian animation studio Flying Bark Productions by Studio 100's German global distribution division Studio 100 Media, Studio 100 announced that its global distribution division Studio 100 Media had established a deal to acquire a 68% majority stake in German brand management and media production and distribution company Made 4 Entertainment (M4E AG) the producer of Mia and Me and the owner of the libraries of the former German distributor TV-Loonland AG and Danish animation outfit Egmont Imagination alongside its Dutch distribution subsidiary Telescreen in a deal that could combine Studio 100's expanded catalogue with Made 4 Entertainment (m4e)'s wider library which would make the former as the biggest kids and family entertainment content companies across Europe with Made 4 Entertainment (M4E) would continue to invest their new content and its global expansion. A month later in late-February of that same year, Studio 100's global distribution division Studio 100 Media announced that they have completed their acquisition of a 68% majority stake in German brand management and media production and distribution company Made 4 Entertainment (m4e AG) the producer of Mia and Me and the owner of the libraries of the former German distributor TV-Loonland AG and Danish animation outfit Egmont Imagination alongside its Dutch distribution subsidiary Telescreen, making it a subsidiary of Studio 100 Media with Made 4 Entertainment (M4E)'s CEO and founder Hans Ulrich Stoef continued to lead the acquired company through Studio 100 Media. Studio 100 Media would eventually increase their stake of Made 4 Entertainment (m4e) and later took full control after selling and spinning off some of m4e's subsidiaries three years later in 2020.
At the start of December 2017, Studio 100 expanded their international operations into the United States with their acquisition of New York-based American preschool animation production studio Little Airplane Productions, thrust giving Studio 100 another animation studio this time in the U.S. as their American animation production subsidiary with the latter developing and producing their new projects with Studio 100's own in-house animation production studios such as Studio 100 Animation alongside its Munich-based global distribution division Studio 100 Media distributing them whilst Little Airplane Production founder Josh Selig continued leading the New York-based American animation studios within Studio 100.