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Cookie Jar Entertainment
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The Cookie Jar Group (also known as The Cookie Jar Company) is a Canadian producer of children’s entertainment, consumer products and educational materials. Made up of three divisions: entertainment, consumer products, and education, Cookie Jar Group is one of the world’s largest independent children’s entertainment, consumer products and education companies with ownership and licensing rights to some of the most recognizable character brands.
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Encyclopedia
The Cookie Jar Group (also known as The Cookie Jar Company) is a Canadian producer of children’s entertainment, consumer products and educational materials. Made up of three divisions: entertainment, consumer products, and education, Cookie Jar Group is one of the world’s largest independent children’s entertainment, consumer products and education companies with ownership and licensing rights to some of the most recognizable character brands. It is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, with offices in Los Angeles, Paris, London, and Tokyo among other places.
In its previous incarnation as Cinar (pronounced seh-NAR), the company enjoyed an illustrious existence that ultimately ended in scandal. Cinar was an integrated entertainment and education company involved in the development, production, post-production and worldwide distribution of family entertainment programming and educational products.
History
Cinar
20th century
After their 1976 meeting in New Orleans, future spouses Micheline Charest and Ronald A. Weinberg organized an event for a women's film festival, and worked at distributing foreign films to US theatres. The couple moved to New York and formed Cinar, a film and television distribution company.
In 1984, Cinar changed their focus from media distribution to production, and moved operations to Montreal, where they concentrated on children's television programming (including Animal Crackers, Emily of New Moon, Mona the Vampire, and The Wombles), as well as the English and French dubs of the anime series Adventures of the Little Koala and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the Spain-originating TV series The World of David the Gnome. As a production company, Cinar was also involved in the work of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, The Busy World of Richard Scarry, Madeline, Space Cases and, its most famous work, Arthur and Zoboomafoo. The firm became a public company in September 1993. By 1999, Cinar boasted annual revenues of $150 million (CAD) and owned about $1.5 billion (CAD) of the children's television market. In the late 1990s, Cinar bought the rights to all the shows owned and made by British animation company FilmFair. The company had become known for its children's programs, broadcast in more than 150 countries.
Scandal
The success of Charest, Weinberg, and Cinar ended in March 2000, when an internal audit revealed that about $122 million (US) was invested into Bahamian bank accounts without the boardmembers' approval. Cinar had also paid American screenwriters for work while continuing to accept Canadian federal grants for content. The names of Canadian authors were credited for the work, allowing Cinar to benefit from Canadian tax credits. While the province of Quebec did not file criminal charges, Cinar denied any wrongdoing, choosing instead to pay a settlement to Canadian and Quebec tax authorities of $17.8 million (CAD) and another $2.6 million (CAD) to Telefilm Canada, a Canadian federal funding agency. The value of Cinar stock plummeted, and the company was soon delisted.
In 2001, as part of a settlement agreement with the Société des Valeures Mobilières du Québec (Quebec Securities Commission) Charest and Weinberg agreed to pay $1 million each and were banned from serving in the capacity of directors or officers at any publicly traded Canadian company for five years. There was no admission of guilt and none of the allegations have been proven in court.
In September 2008, William A. Urseth published an insider's book called Death Spiral. It details the CINAR scandal and how it tied into two other companies called Norshield and Mount Real.
Purchase and rebranding
In March 2004, Cinar was purchased for more than CA$190 million by a group led by Nelvana founder, Michael Hirsh. and former Nelvana President, Toper Taylor.
On June 20, 2008, it was announced that DIC Entertainment would be acquired by Cookie Jar Group. On July 23, 2008, the studio completed the acquisition of DIC Entertainment, and the company was then completely folded into Cookie Jar Entertainment. The company also acquired Copyright Promotions Licensing Group and a one-third interest in international children’s television channel, KidsCo. The acquisition doubled Cookie Jar Entertainment's library of programming. The company now has more than 6,000 half-hours of programming as well as rights to several children's brands.
Recent activity
On July 23, 2008 it was announced that Cookie Jar was in negotiation with American Greetings to buy the Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and Sushi Pack franchise. The deal is not finalized yet in late 2008 and with the current scenario, the transaction will not progress.
Weigel Broadcasting and Cookie Jar are currently providing children's and E/I-oriented programming for the US digital television network This TV, which launched on November 1, 2008.
Television programs
See List of Cookie Jar Entertainment programs
See also
External links
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