First, the unhealthy information. A session serving to to launch an prolonged MipJunior on Friday afternoon, underscored simply how laborious the children TV enterprise is struggling.
Prefacing a panel dialogue on the State of the Kids Entertainment Industry, Challenges & Opportunities, Ampere Analysis’ Cyrine Amor urged world youngsters TV commissions have been down 48% by August 2023.
That’s a radically extra vital lower than the 11% decline in commissioning seen throughout all genres for a similar interval.
U.S. SVOD providers and pay TV channels are chopping again most sharply, she stated. In the U.S. market, public broadcaster commissions of youngsters applications have been down 8% by August. Pay TV commissions, in distinction, had dived 53%, SVOD orders by 33%.
“There are a lot of factors, including inflation,” she stated.
Western Europe can be seeing declines, particularly in public service broadcaster’s commissioning of youngsters TV content material. That determine is down 19% p.c by August.
This strain is making Western platforms undertake developments already seen within the U.S. similar to of relying extra on IPs to develop properties.
While nearly all of youngsters content material in Western Europe is discovered on SVOD, over the past 12 months, youngsters applications which are the most well-liked have been obtainable throughout all platforms. Non-exclusivity can repay for these wanting to remain widespread after launch, Amor argued.
Moderator Deirdre Brennan, COO at Wildbrain, adopted on the presentation grilling panelists Keith Chapman, creator of Kids IP, Keith Chapman Productions; Olivier Lelardoux, CEO of France’s Blue Spirit Studio), and Sarah Dewitt, senior VP & General Manager, PBS Kids).
Topics beneath dialogue included adjustments within the business over the past decade, instanced by the rise of digital and gaming, viewers fragmentation, and the emergence of disruptive applied sciences similar to AI.
The largest matter was know-how. “10 years ago, technology in studios was improving what you already do. Now it has a much bigger impact,” stated Lelardoux. “It’s the first time in animation that technology not only disrupts animation but comes with a package of gaming.”
Technology has opened the enjoying discipline for experimentation.
“It’s time to try and fail,” he stated. “It’s a new world, but we are all lost here. Of course you will fail but it’s O.K.. Little failures can lead to a big win.”
Meeting the viewers, as a substitute of following them, was one other matter.
Said Dewitt: “We are always thinking about how technology allows us to find our audience. Coming out of the pandemic, kids and families like doing things together. What can they watch together?”
Technology enhances studying, she stated “Kids learn more, when they have a conversation with a character that breaks the fourth wall, and asks the kids a question. Responses are written by our script writers,” she stated. “Kids who are engaging like that are coming away with greater learning.”
All platforms will not be equal. “Kids have different expectations for different platforms,” she stated. “You can’t put the same product everywhere and expect them to respond. They do different things on different platforms.”
Added Chapman: Young entrepreneurs use know-how in new methods.”
When requested the place he finds inspiration, he stated: “Having children helps. Watching them grow up in front of you makes you an expert in child behavior. I look for gaps and look to the future and ask what will be relevant to a kid in three to five years? Sometimes, ideas come out of nowhere. Reading. Talking. Observing kids.”
For Amor, creating a cross-media content material model is the important thing to the longer term.
MipJunior runs Oct. 13-15 in Cannes.