About HIT Entertainment
HIT Entertainment, owned by private equity investment group Apax Partners, is one of the world's leading independent children's entertainment producers and rights-owners. HIT's portfolio includes properties, such as Barney™, Bob the Builder™, Thomas & Friends™, Pingu™, Fireman Sam™, Angelina Ballerina™ and Rainbow Magic™. HIT represents Chapman Entertainment's Fifi and the Flowertots™ and Roary the Racing Car™ in North America and Japan, as well as Wallace & Gromit™, Shaun the Sheep™, Timmy Time™ and Aardman Classics from Aardman Animations. HIT also acts as a worldwide representative for The Jim Henson Company's library of classic family brands and as representative for The Wiggles® in the UK.
Launched in 1989, HIT's lines of business span television and video production, content distribution, publishing, consumer products licensing, live events and attractions and has operations in the UK, US, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan. HIT is a part-owner of US preschool channel, PBS KIDS Sprout℠, and international preschool channel JimJam, (outside of the US, UK and China).
For more information, visit http://www.hitentertainment.com.
Rodrigo Piza
Vice President Television Canada, US Hispanic and Latin America, HIT Entertainment
Rodrigo Pizá, Vice President of Television Canada, US Hispanic, and Latin America, HIT Entertainment is an experienced executive with more than 13 of years of experience in the entertainment industry. In his current role, Mr. Piza oversees TV distribution of HIT properties, including Bob the Builder™, Barney™, Thomas & Friends™, Angelina Ballerina™ and more, into Canada, Latin America and the US Hispanic market.
Prior to joining HIT, from 1998 to 2005, Mr. Piza served as General Manager for the Locomotion Channel, a joint venture between The Hearst Corporation and Corus Entertainment Inc. In this role, he was responsible for the overall operations of the channel, including new business development, affiliate sales and advertising. In addition, he oversaw the editorial content, marketing and creative direction of the channel. In 1999 Piza re-launched Locomotion, positioning it as a unique 24-hour animation channel for young adults in Latin America, Spain and Portugal. He acquired groundbreaking animated series like South Park, Bob & Margaret, Duckman and Japanese animation like Akira and Evangelion. Under his direction Locomotion received eight prestigious international PROMAX/BDA awards for its unique design and branding.
Previously, Piza was the Director of Nelvana Enterprises (UK) Ltd, the London operating arm of Canadian-based animation studio Nelvana Limited. In this role he was responsible for Co- Productions, Consumer Products Licensing and TV Distribution in Japan, South East Asia, Australia and Latin America. At the time the company represented a library of more than 800 hours of children's programming, including Babar the Elephant, Rolie Polie Oli, The Adventures of Tin Tin, Magic School Bus and Pippi Longstockings.
He is fluent in Spanish and English and conversational in French. In 2007 he wrote and directed the feature film, "¿Te veré en el desayuno?" which will be released in 2009.
