2015 Review: children's TV round-up

Ofcom’s review of public service broadcasting, plus the impending BBC charter renewal, brought some legacy kids’ TV issues to a head this year.

Few were surprised when the regulator revealed in July that the BBC accounted for nearly 97% of UK kids’ originations across the PSB channels, and that spend by ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 had fallen to just £3m.

Some thought the answer was to reimpose quotas on commercial PSBs. “We’re beginning to see this work in Brazil,” says Zodiak Kids Studios chief executive Michael Carrington.

Others argued that the BBC’s charter renewal was the perfect opportunity for the government to redress the commissioning balance. Animation UK chairman Oli Hyatt supported the government green paper’s suggestion of “contestable funding pot” to ring-fence money for children’s content. Given the BBC’s dominance of the market, he acknowledged that top-slicing other licence fee-funded BBC services was one likely option.

Around 80 TV executives signed a petition that Hyatt delivered to culture secretary John Whittingdale in July, although BBC Children’s director Alice Webb rejected the proposition as “unworkable”. Many agree with her. “It would just be another quango that would end up slowing down the whole process,” argues Billy Macqueen, cofounder of Teletubbies producer Darrall Macqueen.

Effective government intervention so far has come in the form of the animation and children’s live-action tax credits, introduced in 2014 and welcomed with open arms.

Macqueen says it allowed the DHX-owned property Teletubbies to be produced in the UK using local talent rather than be made as a purely CGI property in Canada. Zodiak, meanwhile, was able to make its new CG animated show Floogals for NBC Sprout and Discovery entirely in the UK and, more specifically, in Brixton, with animation partner Jellyfish.

But what the government gives with one hand, it could very well take away with the other as Ofcom’s latest review of the terms of trade nears completion. Macqueen says that holding onto IP – the lifeblood of the

UK kids’ TV industry – will be key for his indie in the year ahead. “If we lose IP then that’s game over for all UK kids’ indies,” he warns. “It’s key to getting enough revenue in for the next year and devising new stuff.

Otherwise, we just become studios for hire for a flat fee. That would be a shame, considering our past history of international success.”

The industry is also hoping that the might of Amazon and Netflix will stimulate the sector. With budgets of reportedly more than £300,000 per half hour for pre-school material and £600,000-plus for under-15s programming, indies are excited – but wary.

“They seem like interesting places to be, and that is where our target audience is going, but it still only makes up a fraction of the content opportunities that broadcasters are offering – and that includes CITV and Channel 5,” says Macqueen.

Zodiak developed a pilot, Buddy: Tech Detective, with Amazon earlier this year. “It didn’t get picked up but it was a hugely interesting experience,” says Carrington. “You’re given such a short, intense period of time – three months to develop and produce a pilot.”

The former CBeebies controller says Amazon also has a totally different approach to meetings: “The feedback is all live: the immediate response of kids in the room while they’re watching it informs how they commission.”

With the online market still opting for quality rather than quantity, and only a handful of shows generating significant licence and merchandising revenues (“one in 200”, estimates Macqueen), content creators in the kids’ TV space have had to learn to play to their strengths.

For some, this has meant courting international broadcasters as their main backers. Five years ago, Lime Pictures became the first indie to win a Nick US commission with its three-season British boarding school soap House Of Anibus.

This year, following a four-episode mini-series, the All- 3Media company secured another first: a commission from both Disney in the UK and the US for the 20-part Evermoor Chronicles.

“What’s marked us out is our ability to engage with a broad, transatlantic audience, and that we are not scared of high volume,” says Lime co-managing director Claire Poyser.

Now Lime is keen to expand into Canada. “Their story and quality sensitivities are similar to the UK market. An alliance would potentially work really well for us,” she adds.

Following young audiences across multiple platforms is another challenge for cash-strapped content creators who want to stay ahead of the game.

Zodiak’s main goal next year is “to create more branching narratives for our properties while finding ways to finance this and keeping the linear production pipeline going,” says Carrington.

Zodiak has delivered interactive properties for the CBBC/ABC co-pro Secret Life Of Boys, which launched on cbbc.co.uk in November. A 5 x 22-minute TV omnibus also ran on the CBBC linear channel.

The super-indie also launched its own YouTube channels this year. ZeeKay and ZeeKay Junior feature a range of its properties, including pilots. For Carrington, it’s a way of managing content that’s already online, although the eventual aim is to monetise it.

Somethin’ Else’s wins at last month’s Children’s Baftas show the growing importance of interactive content. As well as Best Production Company, it was garlanded for The Dumping Ground game You’re The Boss and interactive BBC2 series Poetry: Between The Lines.

It may have come as a surprise to some to see a company not readily associated with kids’ TV clear up at the Baftas, but managing partner Ian Sharpe’s message to linear production companies is clear: “Kids aren’t just watching TV any more – they’re using their parents’ devices to watch catch-up and play Minecraft. So it becomes all about what games spin-offs and visual properties you can develop.”

Fuelled by a risk-averse broadcast market and the desire to future-proof much-loved shows for new audiences, heritage shows continued to trend this year.

Following reboots of ’80s animated classics Danger Mouse (pictured) and Inspector Gadget, CBeebies relaunched Clangers and Teletubbies.

Of the latter, Darrall Macqueen co-founder Billy Macqueen told Broadcast: “It was a bit like being given the crown jewels and giving them a polish.” The same indie also brought Topsy And Tim to life for CBeebies. The channel’s first live-action drama series featured two big story arcs focused around moving house and starting school.

Macqueen argues that heritage shows are not the result of an underfunded, development-deprived industry – and that their volume has been distorted by the media attention they receive.

“From time to time you get an article about the BBC: ‘Why does it only ever remake old shows?’, but over the past three months CBBC and CBeebies have launched new series every week,” he says. “There’s tons of new stuff out there but it’s aimed at kids. It’s the heritage shows that tend to get the publicity because older journos remember them from their past.”

Securing a deal with a heritage rights holder can be an effective way of obtaining development money without going cap in hand to a broadcaster.

Zodiak Kids Studios chief executive Michael Carrington reveals that it actively sought heritage brands for the international marketplace.

The production company – which restructured this year, bringing UK indie The Foundation together with France’s Marathon Media and Tele Images under one brand – has several development deals in place.

It is working with Austrian IP holder Tower 10 for Thomas Brezina’s Tiger Team books; has a deal with IP powerhouse Coolabi for the best-selling Sea Quest book series; and another with Thomas The Tank Engine creator Britt Alcroft to redevelop late-1990s CITV series Mumfie.