MipJunior Opening Panel Talks Plunging Commissions, IPs, High Tech

First, the dangerous information. A session serving to to launch an prolonged MipJunior on Friday afternoon, underscored simply how onerous the children TV enterprise is struggling. 

Prefacing a panel dialogue on the State of the Youngsters Leisure Business, Challenges & Alternatives, Ampere Evaluation’ Cyrine Amor urged international youngsters TV commissions have been down 48% by August 2023.

That’s a radically extra important lower than the 11% decline in commissioning seen throughout all genres for a similar interval. 

U.S. SVOD companies and pay TV channels are slicing again most sharply, she mentioned. Within the U.S. market, public broadcaster commissions of children packages have been down 8% by August. Pay TV commissions, in distinction, had dived 53%, SVOD orders by 33%.

“There are loads of components, together with inflation,” she mentioned. 

Western Europe can be seeing declines, particularly in public service broadcaster’s commissioning of children TV content material. That determine is down 19% % by August. 

This strain is making Western platforms undertake developments already seen within the U.S. reminiscent of of relying extra on IPs to develop properties.

Whereas the vast majority of youngsters content material in Western Europe is discovered on SVOD, over the past 12 months, youngsters packages which can be the preferred have been accessible throughout all platforms. Non-exclusivity can repay for these wanting to remain standard after launch, Amor argued. 

Moderator Deirdre Brennan, COO at Wildbrain, adopted on the presentation grilling panelists Keith Chapman, creator of Youngsters IP, Keith Chapman Productions; Olivier Lelardoux, CEO of France’s Blue Spirit Studio), and Sarah Dewitt, senior VP & Basic Supervisor, PBS Youngsters).

Subjects below dialogue included adjustments within the trade over the past decade, instanced by the rise of digital and gaming, viewers fragmentation, and the emergence of disruptive applied sciences reminiscent of AI. 

The most important matter was expertise. “10 years in the past, expertise in studios was enhancing what you already do. Now it has a a lot larger influence,” mentioned Lelardoux. “It’s the primary time in animation that expertise not solely disrupts animation however comes with a package deal of gaming.”

Know-how has opened the taking part in area for experimentation.

“It’s time to attempt to fail,” he mentioned. “It’s a brand new world, however we’re all misplaced right here. In fact you’ll fail nevertheless it’s O.Okay.. Little failures can result in an enormous win.”

Assembly the viewers, as a substitute of following them, was one other matter.

Mentioned Dewitt: “We’re all the time fascinated by how expertise permits us to seek out our viewers. Popping out of the pandemic, youngsters and households like doing issues collectively. What can they watch collectively?”

Know-how enhances studying, she mentioned “Youngsters study extra, after they have a dialog with a personality that breaks the fourth wall, and asks the children a query. Responses are written by our script writers,” she mentioned. “Youngsters who’re partaking like which can be coming away with larger studying.” 

All platforms aren’t equal. “Youngsters have totally different expectations for various platforms,” she mentioned. “You may’t put the identical product all over the place and count on them to reply. They do various things on totally different platforms.”

Added Chapman: Younger entrepreneurs use expertise in new methods.”

When requested the place he finds inspiration, he mentioned: “Having kids helps. Watching them develop up in entrance of you makes you an skilled in little one habits. I search for gaps and look to the longer term and ask what will probably be related to a child in three to 5 years? Generally, concepts come out of nowhere. Studying. Speaking. Observing youngsters.”

For Amor, creating a cross-media content material model is the important thing to the longer term. 

MipJunior runs Oct. 13-15 in Cannes.