Netflix Orders ‘Winx Club’ Spinoff, as Streamer Keeps Up Kidvid Splurge

Netflix, in another move to bulk up on original children’s programming, has ordered two seasons of “Winx Club WOW: World of Winx,” a spinoff of the “Winx Club” Italian toon franchise, in which girls embark on magical journeys looking for talented kids.

The new series is produced by Italian animation studio Rainbow. “Winx Club WOW” will be exclusively available in all Netflix territories, including France and Germany. The first of the two seasons, each comprising 13 22-minute episodes, are slated to be available by early 2016 with the second to follow in the fall.

The show is the latest addition to Netflix’s kid-oriented fare — a key genre for parents to let their offspring binge-watch age-appropriate entertainment, without any advertising. The SVOD company has pacts with DreamWorks Animation, Scholastic Media, Mattel and others for original kids’ shows. The DWA deal is the biggest of the deals, covering more than 300 hours of original programming including series “Turbo FAST” and new seasons of “DreamWorks Dragons.” In addition, under a pact with Disney, Netflix will get pay-TV window rights to future theatrical releases from Pixar and Disney Animation starting in 2016.

SEE ALSO: Netflix Picks Up ‘Popples’ Kidvid Series to Debut in 2015

“‘Winx Club’ is already a very successful show on Netflix in all our territories; it’s exciting to be expanding our relationship with such a great European animation studio,” Erik Barmack, VP of content acquisition at Netflix, said in announcing the spinoff.

In “Winx Club WOW,” the girls embark on an undercover journey all around the world looking for talented kids in art, sports, music and science. “We are very happy to be building a solid and wide collaboration with Netflix, so extending it to include new and original content is fantastic news,” commented Rainbow Group president and CEO Iginio Straffi.

Under is existing pact with Rainbow Studios, Netflix offers prior seasons of “Winx Club” worldwide, as well as other Rainbow properties “PopPixie” and “Mia and Me.” Additionally, the most recent “Winx Club” movie, “The Mystery of the Abyss,” is slated to be available exclusively on Netflix in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland and France shortly after this month’s theatrical release.

As part of its efforts to ramp up kid content, Netflix in July hired Brian Wright, previously Nickelodeon’s senior VP of live-action development, to head up acquisition of kids and family programming.

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