October 4, 2010
CANNES— NHK/NHK Educational Corporation, and Al Jazeera Children's Channel are happy to announce that their first co-production series Discover Science is gaining interest from broadcasters around the world. Already German broadcaster SWR; UR from Sweden, and EBS from Korea have come on board as co-producers since the series started calling out for partners in April; Astro will also broadcast the series in Malaysia and Brunei.
Discover Science is a new science entertainment series that offers a chance to understand the theories of science by seeing it in action through “ridiculously” huge experiments. The creative visualization paired with NHK’s latest shooting techniques has yielded fascinating ways to visualize scientific phenomena.
Walter Sucher, Head of the Department of Science and Education at Sudwestrundfunk (SWR), the first to come on board as a co-producer explains, “Our producers were excited about this series because it brings scientific phenomena from the lab into the real world. And in doing so it also helps us to understand better what may be called 'the unnatural nature of science'. Because what seems to be logic in little things does not necessarily have to work on a larger scale - or does it? It does, and Discover Science makes us understand why.“
Kenichi Murakami, President and CEO of NHK Educational Corporation (NED) which led the production comments, “We are very happy that so many broadcasters have shown interest at such an early stage. We believe this shows how much need there is for good science programs presented in a fun way. We did produce the series with the mindset to make it something that would fit in any country or any program, so we are happy to see so many people taking interest.”
Mahmoud Bouneb, Executive General Manager of Al Jazeera Children’s Channel (JCC), stated: “We are pleased to see the fruit of our co-production with NHK/NED being positively received by broadcasters around the world for both English and Arabic versions; we are also looking forward to more co-productions with the NHK on science, technology and environment.”
Now that the 26 episodes are complete, NHK/NED/JCC are looking to expand the territories which the program will be shown. They have appointed NHK Enterprises (NEP) as their official distributor.
Vice-President, Yukihiko Amagi, who oversees international distribution at NHK Enterprises (NEP) says “NEP is very happy to be given the opportunity to be the Official Distributor of this series. We have high expectations for this series as it is designed to fit to broad genres, like science, children, education, and pure entertainment.”
