Customer Story

Localizing 30 seasons of Bob Ross: The Joy of Painting in record time

Cineverse is an independent entertainment company that owns, creates and distributes award-winning content. One of its most successful series is the Emmy award-winning Bob Ross: The Joy of Painting, which has been captivating audiences on TV in the US for over 30 years. Cineverse's chief product officer, Tony Huidor, wanted to extend the value and safeguard the longevity of the cult show by distributing it to Spanish-speaking audiences in the US and Latin America, but the project was thwarted by the cost of human dubbing. Until Cineverse and Papercup partnered to localize the entire Bob Ross catalog.

How Cineverse uses AI dubbing

1. Localizing content that couldn’t be done by human dubbing 

It’s well documented that the studio dubbing process is expensive, but it’s also time-consuming which means that lots of content with huge pent up value, like Bob Ross, falls through the localization cracks. 

By partnering with Papercup, Cineverse was able to localize large volumes – two seasons a week – at a speed not possible with human dubbing.

2. Fast-forwarding content profitability 

The dramatically reduced turnaround times promised by AI dubbing, combined with strong evidence of the show’s ability to engage existing, English-speaking, audiences made for a solid business case. 

With AI dubbing, Cineverse has been able to realize the true value of a successful show that would have otherwise been stuck in its original language.

The AI-dubbed Bob Ross was a launch partner for Roku’s Espacio Latino
The Result

One of the most distributed single series channels across FAST

Cineverse set out to scale its business internationally at a pivotal time for the entertainment industry: as demand for streaming content adapted for local markets continues to grow. By adopting AI dubbing, Cineverse extended the value of top performing show, not only by growing audiences abroad, but by fast forwarding profitability as a result of rapid localization turnaround times.

Bob Ross en español became a launch partner for Roku's Espacio Latino and is now live across top tier FAST platforms like Tubi and ViX.

Media company
California, USA

Here's what Cineverse says about us

"The Bob Ross channel is one of our most successful channels due to its broad appeal and the magic that Bob Ross’ talent and innovation brought to the screen. By partnering with Papercup to seamlessly dub Bob Ross' voice using artificial intelligence and synthetic speech, we have extended the reach of the show. As streaming services continue to expand worldwide, this will allow us to reach a previously untapped global audience."
Tony Huidor
Chief Technology & Product Officer

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