Viacom's Nickelodeon Animation Studio in the United States and Rainbow in Italy. Nickelodeon Consumer Products secured merchandising rights to the revival in some regions including the United States. The revived series began with four special episodes that summarize the first two seasons of the original show, followed by the fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. As the production team was divided between two countries, Nickelodeon released a statement commenting on how Winx Club was an unusual production for the company: "it's not our usual practice to co-produce cartoons; we make them by ourselves. But we strongly believe in Winx." Along with another brand revival (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Winx Club was officially inducted into Nickelodeon's franchise of Nicktoons, a brand that encompasses original animated productions created for the network. On each episode of the revived series, Nickelodeon approved scripts and all phases of animation. Nickelodeon brought on some of its long-time staff members, such as creative director Janice Burgess, and writers Sascha Paladino, Adam Peltzman, and Carin Greenberg. On 7 April 2014, Rainbow and Nickelodeon announced their continuing partnership on the seventh season of Winx Club, with a planned premiere date of 2015. Straffi said of the season: "It will be a privilege to partner once more with Nickelodeon on this." During this season's production, Rainbow was undergoing a multimillion-euro financial loss due to the box office failure of its film Gladiators of Rome. This made them cut costs on Winx Club, its most expensive show. The CGI-animated segments and California voice cast from the previous two seasons were deemed too costly to continue using for season 7. As with the previous two seasons, the copyright to season 7 is co-owned by Rainbow and Viacom. The first episode aired on 22 June 2015, on Nickelodeon in Asia, followed by its American broadcast on the Nick Jr. channel on 10 January 2016. The president of Nickelodeon International, Pierluigi Gazzolo, was responsible for arranging the co-production partnership and became a member of Rainbow's board of directors (a role he continues to serve in, as of November 2019). In addition to financing the television series, Viacom provided the resources necessary to produce a third Winx film. In 2019, Iginio Straffi commented on the two studios' near-decade of continued work together, saying that "the know-how of Rainbow and the know-how of Nickelodeon are very complementary; the sensibilities of the Americans, with our European touch." Winx