Jan 12, 2024

Sony lowers the value of "Hilda" producer Silvergate Media by $50 million.

A little more than four years after acquiring "Hilda and Peter Rabbit" production company Silvergate Media for $195 million, Sony has reduced the company's value by $50 million and Silvergate co-founder William Astor has stepped down as its chairman.

According to Deadline, which broke the valuation news, Sony's U.K. parent, Columbia Pictures Corporation, revealed the adjustment in its latest financial statements covering the period from April 2022 through March 2023. Columbia Pictures Corporation's revenue for the same period was £427 million ($544.8 million), down 8% from the previous year.

Astor's departure was confirmed by Variety.

Silvergate Media, which quietly rebranded as Sony Pictures Television Kids in 2022, has just aired its third and final season of the BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated Netflix series "Hilda" and, Nickelodeon and the BBC's Daytime Emmy Award-winning series "Peter Rabbit," among other popular and successful children's shows. The company also owns the Octonauts franchise. [It's not just Columbia and Sony that are suffering in the UK right now. The region's kids and family industry is struggling as TV ratings decline and production costs rise; two years ago, the British government controversially scrapped the Young Audiences Content Fund, which had funded the development of children's content and covered up to half the production costs of some projects. This caused controversy. Since then, industry group Animation UK has been working tirelessly to draft new legislation to make up for this loss.

The Children's Media Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that UK children have access to the best possible media, is similarly concerned about funding issues and held a summit in March to discuss these concerns and It will hold a summit in March to address these concerns and other important issues affecting the future of children's content production in the U.K.