C21’s Content London On Demand event will publish online at ContentLondon.net between November 16 and December 4, focusing on the programming and strategies that will define the content business in 2021.
In the "Kids Content: Opportunities For Inclusivity" panel, leading international children’s content commissioners and executives will discuss their commissioning strategies and priorities, exploring the crucial role of diversity and inclusion within kids TV content to ensure programming reflects and is made by the diverse society we live in.
Joining Hahn will be Miki Chojnacka, Chief content and creative officer, Hopster; Jon Mason, Founder of Jollywise and creator of the Secret Story Draw; and Cheryl Taylor, Head of content, BBC Children’s.
Access to view the sessions is free of charge to C21PRO subscribers.
To gain access to view this year’s Content London On Demand sessions you can take out a C21PRO subscription by clicking here.
From C21 Digital Screenings:
C21 DIGITAL SCREENINGS
Theme Festival - Kids Programming
C21 explores how the children’s TV sector coped with the events of 2020 and looks ahead to what studios and distributors have to show after a year of development and remote production.
It would be simplistic to suggest that the kids content business has come through Covid-19 without any bumps or bruises. But compared with most sectors inside and outside TV it is weathering the storm pretty well.
Animation studios have had to make adjustments to their workflow, but this has meant temporary suspensions rather than cancellations, says Cyber Group Studios CEO Pierre Sissman. “We had a brief pause on our preschool series Gigantosaurus while we got animators set up to work at home, but they soon caught up. People have been working so hard during lockdown that productivity isn’t suffering.”
Kids live-action is, in theory, more at risk from the virus. But for the most part, children’s drama productions have fewer moving parts than adult dramas – which makes them more manageable. Viacom Studios UK’s live-action series Goldies Oldies, for example, bounced back from lockdown and re-entered production in the second half of 2020. Wildbrain, meanwhile, has scored strong sales for Malory Towers, a live-action series produced for Family Channel Canada and CBBC in the UK.
True, there is a financial downside to Covid-19, with ad-funded networks likely to trim their kids’ programming budgets heading in to 2021. But public broadcasters still provide valuable support as coproducers. To illustrate the point, Komixx Entertainment has just completed delivery of 52-episode animation series Dog Loves Books for BBC’s CBeebies, ABC in Australia and German children’s network KiKa.
Even more significant is the continued voracious appetite for kids’ content from both studio-backed and independently run SVoD and pay TV platforms. Some of this demand is met by in-house production divisions, notably Disney, Warner, ViacomCBS, or by subsidiaries, such as NBCUniversal (NBCU)-owned DreamWorks, which has just struck a long-term supply deal with NBCU’s pay platform Sky.
But there are also abundant instances of streamer commissions, from the AppleTV+ deal for Wildbrain’s Peanuts franchise through to Netflix’s greenlight of Xilam animated series Trico. Xilam has also been the beneficiary of renewed demand from Chinese streamers – recently unveiling a copro deal with Alibaba-backed Youku on preschool series Lupin’s Tales (78×7’).
Further evidence of Chinese support for the global kids’ sector is Tencent Video’s new swathe of copro deals with Luxembourg-based Zeilt Productions as well as Sixteen South and Silvergate Media in the UK. As reported in C21, the three partnerships mark the start of Tencent’s multi-year strategy to partner with European studios on copros that will see children’s shows air as originals on the Tencent Kids platform.
Ed Galton, co-founder and CCO of animation studio Cake, says his company has continued to do brisk business during Covid-19 in both production and distribution. Activities range from “a new Angry Birds series for Netflix to the third series of Total Dramarama, produced with Fresh TV for Teletoon Canada and Cartoon Network US,” says Galton. Further underlining the growing importance of streamers, Cake is also handling global distribution on Lucas the Spider, a Fresh TV show that will be shared by Cartoon Network and HBO Max.
Galton is not in denial about the challenges presented by Covid-19, pointing out that the current downturn may also result in households with kids taking fewer streamer subscriptions. “But the industry needs content. Even if there is downward pressure on budgets, that will lend itself to risk-sharing coproductions and distribution opportunities.” On the latter score, Cake has just sold series including Mush Mush & The Mushables, Pablo and Mighty Mike to broadcasters across Asia.
Cyber Group’s Sissman echoes the story at Cake. “We can see a drop-off in ad revenue occurring in Europe, but the overall picture for kids remains strong. We are close to delivering a second season of Gigantosaurus to Disney and are also in production on a new show, 50/50 Heroes, for France Télévisions. At the same time, our catalogue sales have almost doubled on last year, with recently produced series in high demand.”
The company’s increased emphasis on development proves that Cyber Group is feeling upbeat about the future, says Sissman. “We have boosted development by 20% compared with 2019, so we have 12 series in development right now. Two of those, Monster In My Pocket and Alex Player, received a very strong response at Cartoon Forum.”
Both of these series are aimed at older kids, underlining a broad trend towards action-comedy animation for the 6-11 demo. Monica Levy, head of international sales at Federation Kids & Family, says this category has also been a priority for her firm. “We make sure we cover every segment, but there are buyers for this age group across all types of platforms,” she says. “We recently licensed Squish to HBO Max and have just made our first third-party acquisition in the demo, a show called Presto: School of Magic, which is being produced by TeamTO. We’re also developing a 6-9 animation series based on a classic property.”
At the same time, Covid-19 has not discouraged Federation from continuing its expansion into kids’ live-action. “Find Me In Paris has been a huge success for us and proved that there is demand for high-quality drama that kids can co-view with their parents. Following that, we are working on two or three more high-end series where the emphasis is on great production quality, strong writing and compelling acting.”
Clearly, Covid-19 restrictions have not been ideal for producing high-end live-action series with sumptuous locations. Fortunately for Federation, however, the third season of Find Me In Paris was complete and the new series are in the development phase. “In the end it worked out quite well,” says Levy, “because we were able to spend a lot of time with writers. It was a chance to create some really great scripts.”
While a large part of 2020 has been about keeping kids projects on track and on time, one parallel narrative across the year has been how to keep kids stimulated and educated while away from school. In the UK, the BBC has been running blocks of education programming while Nickelodeon made 450 interactive and educational games freely available on its sites and apps during lockdown.
In the US, Sesame Workshop has been producing both live-action and animation educational content under its Caring For Each Other banner, says senior VP of international media and education Ed Wells. “We turned to our experts to really get an understanding of what kids and families would need during this time. We then developed content and resources on everything from hygiene to body movement to change of routine.”
Pandemic-specific activities have not deflected Sesame Workshop from its other priorities, however. Commercially, says Wells, the organisation continues its drive into the streaming market. “We still have excellent relationships with broadcasters such as the BBC, NHK and ABC in Australia, but it was important for us to embrace the new platforms that kids and families use. So we have forged a strong relationship with HBO Max on Sesame Street and a new animation series, Mecha Builders. We also have original content on AppleTV+.”
Socially, the issue of diversity has loomed large this year, says Wells. “Diversity has always been a mainstay of what we do, but the conversation shifted this year. So we’ve put a lot of effort into our anti-racism curriculum and created content like The Power of We.”
In fact, diversity has been a key theme across the industry. ViacomCBS recently introduced a No Diversity, No Commission policy, while the BBC is producing new episodes of JoJo & Gran Gran, the UK’s first preschool animated series featuring a black British family. Galton points out that his company and Triggerfish are creating Africa-led project Mama K’s Super 4 for Netflix.
It’s similar in Asia-Pacific, where Omens Studios’ business director Harry Teper says “diversity is part of our DNA. From the upcoming season of Leo the Wildlife Ranger to other shows in development, it all showcases diversity in different forms.”
Chi Sim Tang, CEO of Singapore-based Omens, echoes Sesame Workshop’s Wells by saying education has been a key theme for his company during Covid-19. “We have edutainment preschool shows Leo the Wildlife Ranger and Counting With Paula in production. With children taking to home-based learning in the pandemic, we’ve seen increasing interest in our shows, from parents, buyers and commissioners. We feel commissioners are now more receptive when we pitch ideas with educational and social development values.”
At the other end of the spectrum, demand for escapist fare means that slapstick shows are also seeing accelerated demand, with examples including Trico & Squish. Silas Hickey, executive producer of Omens series Amy & the Afterlife and Dragon Lizzardo, adds: “We are working with showrunners and animators on physical ‘toony’ shows. These are the kind of shows inspired by Vaudeville and incorporate slapstick comedy, and nutty, dimensional, wonderfully neurotic characters.”
The upbeat message from producers and distributors is reinforced from the buyer side. Louise Bucknole, VP of kids programming for ViacomCBS Networks’ kids brands Milkshake! and Nickelodeon UK, says: “It’s been a testing year, but we’re still offering a balanced mix of live-action and animation on Nickelodeon and Channel 5 kids block Milkshake!. Our animation was able to continue in production during lockdown and, despite some live-action series having to go on pause, our pipelines are well stocked. All of our productions are now back filming and we’ve forged ahead with live-action series including Go Green with the Grimwades and The World According To Grandpa.”
Last year, Channel 5 said it would double its content investment in Milkshake!, taking production from 160 to over 300 episodes from 2021 onwards. Nothing has changed on that score, says Bucknole, with CGI series Pip & Posy (a copro with Sky) and Mya Go and Brave Bunnies among the titles coming through.
In terms of how Covid-19 has impacted editorial strategy, Bucknole says the company has sought to “remain reflective and relatable to our audience. We’ve commissioned series with topical themes in mind. Go Green with the Grimwades is a reflection of kids’ interest in the environment and ways they can be more green at home. We’ve also produced over 50 shortform ‘stay at home’ episodes to keep kids occupied in a fun, safe learning environment. We’ve had great success with that and will continue to build on into next year.”
On Nickelodeon and Nicktoons, iconic franchises like Paw Patrol and SpongeBob SquarePants have been supported by specific Covid-friendly formats such as gameshow Nickelodeon Unfiltered and Group Chat, “both filmed in a Covid-style production,” says Bucknole. She says Covid-19 has done nothing to diminish the popularity of Nick’s iconic characters and this will be reinforced by the arrival of The Smurfs in 2021.
Away from Nick, other big brands that are set to reboot or extend include Hasbro/Entertainment One’s Power Rangers; Mattel’s Thomas & Friends, which is being reinvented in 2D by Nelvana; and Warner Bros’ Batman, which will spawn preschool series Batwheels for Cartoon Network and HBO Max. While this is not a new trend, it seems likely that the kids industry’s preference for the safety net of big brands is being further cemented by Covid-19.
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Originally published: Friday, November 06, 2020.
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