The world of Bing is expanding with new projects, partnerships and achievements.
HEADLINE
News from MIPCOM, Cannes 2025
Bing had a highly productive MIPCOM 2025. The market felt more positive than last year. We had over 50 meetings with new and current partners from all over the world.
Jasmine Dawson
An early highlight was the packed conference session: ‘Studios, Broadcasters & YouTube: Changing Video Landscape & How Best to Work with Streaming Platforms’. Jasmine Dawson, the Senior Vice President of Digital at BBC studios, spoke enthusiastically about Acamar’s growing, landmark partnership with BBC Studios on Bing. This session set the tone for much of the debate at MIPCOM, and Jasmine’s talk reverberated throughout the market.
Rai
Working closely with our long-term premium partner, Rai, we’ve licensed a new package of non-episodic and digital-first content for Italy. This includes exciting new audio, as well as a feature-length Bing cinema experience!
Changes to Acamar’s Model
Like many of our industry colleagues, over the last two challenging years, we have made considerable changes at Acamar in the way we develop, produce, distribute, publish, and license our programming. At MIPCOM, it was encouraging to see that our biggest successes – entering exciting new geographies, huge increases in engagement on our digital platforms; new digital, publishing and toy agreements – all flow directly from the changes we have made.
Through our new partnerships model, we’re particularly grateful to our colleagues at BBC Studios, Brands & Rights 360, and 8 Lions, for their extraordinary support in helping us to transform Acamar, and Bing, into a truly global success.
Nomination Progressive Preschool Awards 2025
We’re delighted to announce that Bing has just been nominated for a Progressive Preschool award for the third year in a row. This year we’re finalists in the Best Licensed Toy Range category with our ‘Bing’s Flip & Learn Phone’.
Created in collaboration with our partners at Trends UK, this is an innovative toy. It’s perfect for children from 18 months, and promotes healthy child development through interactive learning. It contains a range of child-centric activities which help develop hand-eye coordination, language acquisition, listening and communication skills, vocabulary building, and imaginative play. Children are able to learn and also to spend time with Bing and his friends.
We sincerely thank the Progressive Preschool Awards jury for recognising our work on Bing with this nomination. Huge congratulations to our fellow nominees.
One Million Views for Rainbow Designs Commercial!
Since 3rd October, with over 1.7 million views, the dedicated television commercial for the Bing, Flop & Hoppity interactive soft toy set, has become a viral success! You can watch it on YouTube with this link.
Rainbow Designs, our market-leading master toy partner, have now launched their new range of Bing toys in the UK. The launch is supported by a comprehensive cross-media campaign, anchored by this television promotion.
Rainbow Designs will be adding to the interactive toys featured in their television commercial, and will showcase their full range in time for this Christmas. New toys include, a three-character ‘Cuddle Bean’ assortment, a wooden ‘Busy Board’, a new ‘Talking Bing’ and so much more. These lovely new toys will also launch in Italy in autumn 2026 and in other markets in spring 2027.
Rainbow Designs are renowned for the quality of their work. Our product development team collaborates closely with their designers, and we are thrilled with this new Bing toy range. We can’t wait to see these special products in shops soon!
Acamar’s CEO, Mikael Shields Speaks on Acamar’s Creative Process at MIA Conference
Mikael Shields, Acamar Films’ CEO, was one of the industry leaders who spoke at the MIA Conference in Rome in October. The MIA Conference is a leading industry event, bringing together global professionals from Film, Television, Animation, and Documentary production. MIA’s mission is to showcase creativity, to create a network for professionals, and to increase opportunities for international collaboration.
Mikael described how each project at Acamar begins with disciplined creative development with great focus on the needs of the audience. Acamar then works with commercial rigour on the distribution of rights. Mikael described this philosophy as: ‘Creatively-led, and commercially-driven’, adding; ‘three elements are essential to our success: prioritising the needs of our audience, a disciplined commercial strategy, and truly valuing strong partnerships.’
Mikael went on to thank the many partners who have contributed to Bing’s international success, and in particular Rai, our long-term broadcast partner in Italy.
YOUTUBE EXPANSION
Milestone Month for Bing’s YouTube Channels
Every month we now achieve remarkable milestones on our international YouTube network with Bing. Our official UK YouTube channel has now achieved one billion lifetime views. This is the third channel to reach this milestone, following our Italian and Polish channels.
In the past year, our US YouTube channels also have seen exceptional growth, especially with our ‘American-English’ version of Bing. Within our multi-platform broadcast strategy, each increase in engagement, exerts a positive impact with an increased engagement and awareness across the network.
Since Bing’s launch on Amazon Prime in the US, our daily views on YouTube have risen by 295%. In the Middle East, the debut on Shahid and MBC 3 has driven a 76% increase, and the show’s arrival on Mentari TV, in Indonesia, has led to a 68% rise in daily views, creating an average of two million Indonesian views each day on YouTube alone!
In every one of our 33 language versions, the past three months have been our strongest ever on YouTube, with an average of over 200 million views each month. This incredible growth reflects the continued global appeal of Bing and the effectiveness of our multi-language strategy.
We’ve also introduced brand-new, previously unseen episodes on YouTube in Japanese, Greek, and Taiwanese Mandarin this month. Making additional episodes available to our young audience creates more engagement and builds greater awareness of Bing in these exciting growing markets.
Each new success with our platform strategy builds on the strength of our audience’s relationship with Bing, and takes us closer to our mission to create a ‘global evergreen’.
PRODUCTION AND BROADCASTER
New Localised Language Versions of Bing Begin Production
We’re excited to announce that two new localisations of Bing have been greenlit for production. As part of Acamar’s global growth strategy, we’re always eager to reach new audiences as well as build stronger relationships with our existing ones. Working with dedicated partners to achieve world class local language versions of Bing is one of the most exciting things we do.
The Waka-Oke Now Available in Dutch!
We’re delighted to have released a new version of the catchy Bing song, ‘The Waka-Oke’, in Dutch. We’ve enjoyed huge success in the Dutch language with Bing and this aligns with our ongoing mission to make the world of Bing as accessible as possible to ‘Bingsters’, no matter which language they speak.
The song features in the episodic series episode ‘Bing’s Birthday’ and also our award winning theatre show ‘Bing is Jarig’ in the Netherlands.
The Dutch version of ‘The Waka-Oke’ is available to listen to on YouTube now!
Three New Audio Stories on Rai Sounds
On the 23rd this October, in Italy, RAI released three new audio stories based on the Italian episodes Il Buio, Dividersi Le Cose and Storie.
These can now be listened to on the Rai Play Sound website!
LICENSING AND PARTNERSHIP
Bedtimes Stories with a New Tonies’ Figurine
We launched our first Bing Tonies figurine in spring 2022. It has proven to be one of the best-selling preschool titles in their portfolio. We are pleased to announce that a second Bing Tonies collection will launch in time for Christmas gifting this year. The new Bing Tonies figurine features a collection of audio stories from our programmes and also original music. Additional narration is performed by the extraordinarily talented Teresa Gallagher, who plays Pico in our television episodes and our cinema features!
This new Bing Tonies playlist is curated to help establish healthy, happy bedtime routines. A regular shared listening experience with our Bing audio stories can be a stepping stone on a child’s developmental journey. It can also help to foster a love of stories and a lifelong reading habit.
At Acamar we’re working to expand our audio output with new content scheduled throughout 2026. There has been a significant growth in the sales of audiobooks, smart speakers and audio devices for children over the last 3-4 years. In the UK, according to the Publishers Association, sales of audiobooks reached a record £268m last year. Our stories are thoughtfully produced to delight and entertain our young audience, and we know that children love our audio stories just as much as our films. Ensuring that our audience can access stories in all forms lies at the heart of what we do at Acamar.
Bedtime Bing will be released 13th November on Tonies.com and all other outlets from 20th November!
Bing’s First Advent Calendar!
Acamar Films has partnered with ethical, ‘free-from’ chocolate maker, Moo Free, to launch the first allergen-free Bing Advent Calendar.
For families with children who have food allergies, the festive season can be a challenging time, with many classic treats off-limits. This collaboration introduces something unique to the market with a festive advent calendar free from dairy, gluten, and soya. Created to be safe for every child to enjoy. This new partnership further strengthens our commitment to making the world of Bing as accessible as possible, where everything is ’round the corner not far away.’
‘This collaboration is about belonging,’ said Moo Free co-founder and CEO, Andrea Jessop. ‘Bing shows us that everyday experiences matter deeply to children. At Moo Free, we believe every child should have the chance to feel included in the magic of Christmas.’
The Bing Advent Calendar, is now available in-store and online at Asda, Ocado, and online at www.moofreechocolates.com.
Bing to Celebrate Christmas in Italy with Balocco
Acamar Films and Balocco have partnered in an exclusive collaboration that combines the world of Bing with classic Italian baked goods.
For over one hundred years Balocco has been bringing traditional symbols of celebration to family tables throughout Italy. This exciting partnership was made possible by our long term Italian agent Maurizio Distefano Licensing, and public relations agency LR&CO. We’re delighted that two Bing themed mini Pandoro cakes will soon be included in Christmas celebrations for families in Italy.
‘We are proud to announce our partnership with Balocco in Italy,’ said Kirsty Southgate, Director of Experiential and Promotions at Acamar Films. ‘Our stories are so loved for their ability to represent everyday life for young children, and this initiative celebrates the authentic values of Christmas’.
Italian speakers can learn more about the Mini Pandoro Cakes on our website!
THEATRICAL AND LIVE EVENTS
Bing’s Sporting Outing in Roma
In October Bing partnered with the Italian Society of Paediatrics (SIP) during the Tennis & Friends weekend in Rome. Now in its 15th year, Tennis & Friends is one of Italy’s most prominent social and sporting events.
Tennis and Friends champions healthy lifestyles, sport, and family fun. The event is dedicated to promoting health, wellbeing, and disease prevention through the power of sport and community engagement. Thousands of families travel across Italy to the Foro Italico to take part in free health checks and screenings, enjoy exhibitions, and pet therapy!
In the SIP paediatric area, lots of children enjoyed complimentary Bing magazines kindly donated by our long-term partner Pon Pon Edizioni.
This year’s event achieved record attendance, with nearly 120,000 visitors. Over 42,000 free screenings, vaccinations, and check-ups were carried out. More than 80 healthcare facilities were represented, offering a comprehensive experience across 200 stations, with over 700 healthcare professionals, spanning 73 specialist areas, taking part.
We are grateful to Laura Rigodanza at our Italian public relations agency LR&CO, for helping us to include Bing in this remarkable day.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
Happy Halloween from the Acamar Films team!
Our friends at Pumpkin Freak have carved something truly special: a Bing pumpkin masterpiece! Please click here to take a look.
