The creator of the children’s song Baby Shark, which has become a global phenomenon, said that his company is eyeing the Chinese market, where the tune did not quite catch on, with a new production featuring dinosaurs.
The popular song about a family of sharks has been a rallying cry at Lebanese anti-government protests, played at the White House and become the unofficial anthem of the baseball World Series champions Washington Nationals. It has also prompted parodies and a dance craze.
The cofounder and chief financial officer of the South Korean publisher behind the viral song and video, the fifth-most viewed all time on YouTube, said it is targeting China next to make sure that it does not end a one-hit wonder.
Photo: Reuters
“Who would have thought sharks could become this popular?” Ryan Lee of SmartStudy said in an interview. “Children who like dinosaurs definitely exist around the world, but there’s no brand name attached to them.”
The Baby Shark song, which has had 3.9 billion views on YouTube, is a under copyright to SmartStudy, a South Korean company that is planning an initial public offering.
The company sees the song to Baby Shark as “evergreen content,” SmartStudy said.
It is planning a Baby Shark-themed animated TV series with the Nickelodeon television network.
SmartStudy sees the limitation of the domestic market and is eyeing China, where the absence of YouTube and the clunky local word for shark, shayu (鯊魚), did little for Baby Shark’s appeal.
Dinosaurs, on the other hand, will be a different story, Lee said, citing China’s active research into the reptiles as a sign of great interest.
“China is not an easy market, but there’s no market more attractive other than China. More than a billion people speaking a single language and this is a country that evolved into a market from a factory,” he said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly