Kids Media Club Podcast

Jo Redfern, Andrew Williams, & Emily Horgan
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Kids Media Club Podcast is a podcast hosted by Jo Redfern, Andy Williams, and Emily Horgan. In each episode they chat with a different guest about the world of Kids Media. The podcast covers everything from trends in animation to the rise of Edtech.

  1. Why Ad Dollars Haven't Followed Kids Audiences — and How to Fix It, with WildBrain's Emma Witkowski

    3 DAYS AGO

    Why Ad Dollars Haven't Followed Kids Audiences — and How to Fix It, with WildBrain's Emma Witkowski

    The second episode in the Kids Media Club's sponsored series with WildBrain Media Solutions brings in Emma Witkowski, WildBrain's VP of Media Solutions. The topic is one the podcast has been circling for a while: kids and family audiences have migrated to YouTube and FAST, but the advertising money largely hasn't followed — and the reasons are more structural than most people in the industry realise. Emma unpacks why the standard programmatic buying infrastructure effectively locks advertisers out of Made for Kids environments, why COPPA compliance is being misread as a liability when it should be a selling point, and why Gen Alpha's influence on household purchasing decisions makes this audience far more commercially valuable than the ad market currently prices in. It's a practical, clear-eyed conversation about how kids media gets funded, why that funding model is under pressure, and what a better approach looks like — essential listening for anyone working in or around kids content who needs to get their head around the ad landscape in 2026. Key Takeaways: Ad dollars haven't followed the audience because the buying infrastructure is broken for kids — major DSPs either block Made for Kids inventory or have it turned off by default, and most brands don't know why.COPPA compliance is being misread as a barrier when it should be a selling point — Made for Kids environments are among the most brand-safe digital spaces available, but they're invisible to data-driven programmatic platforms.Gen Alpha are the household CMO — 89% of parents say their kids influence travel decisions, 80% say kids influence where the family eats, and the influence extends to cars and subscriptions too.Trust is the new currency in kids advertising — parents who grew up with the internet are becoming more intentional about ad environments, and structural compliance is winning over reactive compliance.

    40 min

  2. 30 APR

    Re-Run: Safe Spaces Online: Zigazoo's Ashley Mady and Club Penguin's Chris Heatherly on Building Kids Social Media That Actually Works

    Episode Title: This is a special compilation episode revisiting two of the Kids Media Club's most popular conversations on kids online safety — with Ashley Mady from Zigazoo and Chris Heatherly, former General Manager of Club Penguin at Disney. With regulation around kids social media still very much in flux, it felt like the right moment to bring these two perspectives together. Ashley walks through how Zigazoo works — challenge-based, fully moderated, no bots, no personally identifiable information — and makes the case that safe social media for kids isn't an oxymoron, it's a design choice. The platform's hybrid AI and human moderation model, its age-gated content tiers, and its wishlist-to-parent email feature all point to what's possible when child wellbeing is built into the product from the ground up rather than bolted on afterwards. When TikTok faced its US ban and new users flooded in, existing Zigazoo kids told them how to behave — which is probably the most compelling endorsement of a platform's culture imaginable. Chris brings the historical weight. Club Penguin at its peak had 200 million registered avatars and was, as he puts it, the biggest playground in the world — and his job was to keep it safe and keep it fun. The corporate story is a cautionary one: Disney's MBA-led strategy teams couldn't quantify the value of community, and the platform was eventually shut down despite fierce internal opposition. But the emotional legacy Chris describes — kids who found belonging and identity on Club Penguin that they couldn't find at school — is a reminder of what's genuinely at stake when these platforms get it right.

    15 min

  3. 27 APR

    Bonus episode: Content Europe Lisbon Debrief: What Is a Hit Anymore, the Ad-Funded Kids Media Problem, and Why Patient Capital Matters — with Andy and Jo

    A bonus episode with Andy and Jo, fresh off the plane from Content Europe in Lisbon, where both were on panels and Jo was moderating. Emily is absent this week, so the two debrief on the themes that dominated the conference. The defining question that ran through almost every session was deceptively simple: what even is a hit anymore? A show can hit 200 million YouTube views and still not be financially viable. That gap between attention and money, Andy and Jo agree, is not self-correcting — and without investment flowing back in on terms that make sense for kids content, the market risks stalling further. The advertising conversation is equally candid, with Jo pointing to WildBrain Media Solutions and Lumi as two companies actively trying to solve the COPPA problem by taking kids YouTube inventory out of the programmatic black box and selling it directly to advertisers. Jo closes with the sharpest observation of the episode: that kids media has quietly allowed tech company measurement frameworks — 28-day windows, engagement metrics, short-term return expectations — to define success in a space that has never worked that way. You can't speed run fandom. Patient capital is the only kind that works in kids media, and the industry needs to say so louder. Key Takeaways: "What is a hit?" is now genuinely an open question — the old definition (big linear partner, west coast origin, strong ratings) no longer holds, and the panel at Content Europe couldn't agree on a replacement, which is itself telling.Attention and revenue have been decoupled, and the industry hasn't yet found a reliable way to bridge them. 200 million YouTube views doesn't automatically translate to financial viability for the producers who made the content.WildBrain and Lumi are testing a direct sales model for kids YouTube inventory — selling contextually against known IP rather than through programmatic systems, which offers advertisers brand safety and producers a better commercial deal.Connected TV co-viewing changes the advertising calculus — when a child watches YouTube on the living room TV, a parent is often in the room. That audience is more valuable and more brand-safe than mobile-first viewing, and the industry is only beginning to price that in.Platform native, not platform everywhere — the shift observed across multiple Lisbon panels is from spray-and-pray digital distribution to intentional, platform-specific strategy: YouTube as top of funnel, FAST as destination viewing, streaming partners for deeper engagement.Tech company measurement frameworks don't fit kids media — 28-day Netflix windows, short-term engagement metrics, and VC-style return expectations are being applied to an industry where fandom takes years to build and IP value compounds over decades.Patient capital is the only capital that works in kids — and the industry needs to make that case more deliberately to investors, rather than trying to fit kids IP into frameworks designed for SaaS companies or adult entertainment.The swing back to curated, intentional viewing is good news for kids content — audiences paralysed by infinite choice are gravitating back towards scheduled, lean-back experiences, which plays to the strengths of well-programmed kids IP on FAST and connected TV platforms.

    32 min
  4. WildBrain's Kate Smith on Why YouTube and FAST Are the Kids TV Network of Today — and What Advertisers Are Missing

    23 APR

    WildBrain's Kate Smith on Why YouTube and FAST Are the Kids TV Network of Today — and What Advertisers Are Missing

    This episode of the Kids Media Club Podcast is part of a sponsored series produced in partnership with WildBrain Media Solutions. We get together with Kate Smith, EVP of Audience Engagement at WildBrain to talk about what constitutes a TV Network in 2026. Within the industry the term "distribution" has evolved. Kate opens by sharing how WildBrain has pioneered its own Network, driven by TV viewing insights. The company has quietly become one of the dominant operators in kids' FAST channels and on YouTube, holding over 50% of all kids and family channels across major FAST platforms in the US and operating 800 YouTube channels. We explore how YouTube and FAST serve different but complementary functions — YouTube as a discovery engine, FAST as a destination for fans who already know what they want — and why legacy IP with multigenerational appeal continues to drive the strongest long-form viewing numbers. https://bit.ly/WBMSCapabilities

    38 min

  5. 20 APR

    Netflix Playground: Is Netflix Building the Answer to YouTube Kids? — A Kids Media Club Bonus Episode

    Episode Title: Netflix Playground: Is Netflix Building the Answer to YouTube Kids? — A Kids Media Club Bonus Episode Episode Summary: A short bonus episode with Andy and Emily Horgan, recorded to react to a significant announcement from Netflix that landed while Emily was on holiday — which she notes felt like being deliberately trolled. Netflix has launched the Netflix Playground app, a dedicated gaming environment aimed at preschoolers and young children, and Emily has thoughts. The context matters here. Emily and her team published a Netflix gaming report back in December, identifying two structural problems with how Netflix games worked: first, users had to download games as separate apps and log in via their Netflix account rather than accessing them seamlessly within the platform; and second, kids games weren't available within kids profiles, creating an awkward tension between safety and discoverability. Shortly after publishing, the Netflix gaming team reached out to acknowledge the issues — and Playground is, in effect, their response. The app is pitched at eight and under, though Emily reads it as skewing younger still. It's ad-free with no in-app purchases, and the integration with Netflix accounts is noticeably more seamless than what came before. The content mix is interesting: alongside expected IP like Peppa Pig and Sesame Street, there are a handful of Dr. Seuss titles, StoryBots (which Netflix owns outright), and — the pick that catches Emily's attention most — Bad Dinosaurs. She reads that inclusion as a signal that Netflix is thinking about underleveraged IP: shows that proved sticky and connected with audiences but were left as one-and-done, with all that demonstrated audience value sitting idle. The same announcement also included a renewal for Trash Truck, a soft preschool show with no new content since 2021 that has nonetheless been quietly hanging around in the Netflix data — the kind of quiet buoyancy, Emily argues, that deserves attention. The bigger question the episode circles is whether Netflix Playground could become a genuine walled-garden alternative to YouTube Kids. Emily's instinct when she first saw the announcement was that this could be exactly that — a fully curated, safe digital environment for young children. At launch it's games only, with no video streaming, and the games themselves lean gentle: jigsaws, colouring, slow-paced play. Emily is genuinely on the fence about whether combining video and games in a single environment would be a good thing for that age group, and notes that parents she's spoken to tend to want a clear distinction between screen-time modes. But the underlying observation stands: YouTube Kids, for all its reach, is algorithmically curated and carries a lot of content that isn't exactly nutritious. If Netflix were to go further with Playground, there's a real gap it could fill. The app launched in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand — but not Ireland, which Emily takes as a personal slight. Key Takeaways: Netflix Playground is a dedicated kids gaming app aimed at eight and under, ad-free and with no in-app purchases — a direct response to the discovery and safety problems Emily's team had identified and published in their Netflix gaming report.The login and access experience is significantly more seamless than Netflix's previous gaming setup, which required separate app downloads and created friction for both parents and kids.The IP selection is telling — Bad Dinosaurs and Trash Truck both signal that Netflix is paying attention to underleveraged content with proven audience buoyancy, rather than defaulting only to its biggest franchises.Quiet persistence in viewing data is worth watching — Trash Truck has had no new content since 2021 yet continues to hang around in Netflix engagement numbers. Emily argues that this kind of staying power without activation is a meaningful signal.The walled-garden question is the big one — Netflix Playground has the potential to position itself as a curated, safe alternative to YouTube Kids, but at launch it's games only, and whether video content follows remains to be seen.Netflix's gaming momentum is deliberate and sustained — this isn't a one-off launch left to find its own level. The Playground app is the latest in a series of iterative moves that suggest gaming is a genuine strategic priority, not an experiment.YouTube Kids has a quality problem that a well-executed Netflix alternative could exploit — algorithmic curation means content of variable quality gets through, and parents of young children are an audience actively looking for something more controlled and curated.

    10 min

  6. 16 APR

    Indie Animation Rising: YouTube's New Wave Report, Tiny Chef's Hustle, and Strawberry Vampire's Kickstarter — with Emily Brundige

    Episode Summary: Jo is away in Lisbon for this episode, leaving Andy and Emily Horgan to kick things off with a discussion about a timely YouTube Culture and Trends report — Animation's New Wave: How Independent Online Animators Are Reshaping the Entertainment Industry — before bringing in a guest who feels almost like the report's cover star: indie animator and creator Emily Brundige of Strawberry Vampire. The episode opens with Andy and Emily Horgan picking apart the YouTube report, which surveyed 614 animation fans aged 14 to 24 and found that the majority prefer watching indie animated series on YouTube over major studio output, and that over half watch animation content in languages other than their own. Emily Horgan is candid about the report's limitations — the sample size is modest, and the framing is clearly designed to serve YouTube's own commercial interests — but argues that the very fact YouTube has invested in packaging and publishing this data is itself meaningful. It signals that independent animation on the platform is something YouTube is actively trying to cultivate, not just observe. The Amazing Digital Circus is cited as the headline proof of concept. The discussion quickly turns to two creators who are living the indie animation reality right now. Tiny Chef — the beloved stop-motion show that started as an indie project, got picked up by Nickelodeon, and was then cancelled in the fallout from the Paramount/Skydance gridlock — is highlighted as an instructive case study in building an ecosystem around a show. The viral cancellation clip that made it onto Good Morning America was the moment, but what mattered as much as the moment was the infrastructure already in place: the Instagram following, the merch website, the email list, the Fwiend Club membership community. Brand partnerships with Greggs and IKEA have since followed — a smart alignment of the chef IP with food and home brands — though Emily Horgan raises the very real challenge of knowing how to value those deals when you have no background in commercial negotiations and your back is against the wall. The second half of the episode brings in Emily Brundige directly, joining from Little Toughy Studio for a check-in on Strawberry Vampire. When the pilot animatic launched last Halloween on a channel with just 2,000 subscribers, it got 60,000 views in 48 hours and has since passed 200,000. A passionate fandom has formed around a show that, at this point, consists of an animatic and a handful of shorts. Now, with a second Kickstarter running — this time with a larger goal so she can actually pay her collaborators properly — she's at 79% funded with six days to go. She describes the campaign as a tight basketball match she's still watching closely, but the response has already validated the core question she was testing: whether fans who love the IP would put their hand in their pocket to make more of it. Emily Brundige is refreshingly open about the reality of being a one-person studio and one-person marketing operation simultaneously. The Substack she launched after her first appearance on the podcast now has over 1,000 readers, feeding back into her YouTube channel and building genuine two-way momentum. The Kickstarter rewards are thoughtfully designed — plushie keychains, pins, stickers, custom painted resin figures by animation industry heavyweights including Penn Ward, Patrick McHale, Lauren Faust, and Jorge Gutierrez — and she's offered ten backers the chance to appear as background characters in the animatic, a clever fandom participation play. The episode ends with Andy and Emily Horgan pledging $150 to get the Kids Media Club podcast a thank you in the credits. Running through the whole conversation is a broader point about what quality means in independent animation. Both Emilys and Andy observe that audiences — particularly the 14-to-24 demographic YouTube is courting — are perfectly happy watching animatics if the characters and story resonate. The definition of production quality is shifting, and authenticity and community are increasingly the things that build lasting audiences, not polish. Support Emily Brundige's Strawberry Vampire Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strawberryvampire/strawberry-vampire-help-us-make-the-next-episode Key Takeaways: YouTube's indie animation report is as much a strategic signal as a data release — the platform is actively trying to cultivate independent animation as a category, and the report is a way of giving that ecosystem legitimacy and visibility.The 14-to-24 demographic is driving indie animation — YouTube's data points to this age group as the primary audience, and notably the report focuses entirely on them rather than the under-13s. The kids designation remains commercially and regulatorily thorny for creators on the platform.Tiny Chef's story shows that infrastructure matters as much as the viral moment — the cancellation clip went massively viral, but the email list, merch site, and community membership already in place meant they could convert that attention into sustainable support.Brand partnerships are a viable revenue lever for indie creators, but knowing how to value them without commercial experience is a real challenge that the industry hasn't yet solved for independent producers.Crowdfunding works best when the audience is built before the campaign launches — Emily Brundige's advice is to start collecting emails well in advance of a Kickstarter, giving fans notice and building a list of people who have already signalled they'll support the project.Building in public creates authenticity and fandom — sharing the process of making a show from the animatic stage outward turns production transparency into a community-building tool, and audiences respond to that inclusion.Quality is being redefined by independent animation — audiences who love a show's characters and story will watch animatics, shorts, and work-in-progress content. Full production polish is no longer a prerequisite for building a devoted following.Creative freedom is one of indie animation's most underrated advantages — Emily Brundige contrasts over a decade in traditional studios, where creators have no say over merch or IP decisions, with the indie model where she can commission a comic, make merch decisions, and shape the universe entirely on her own terms.The ecosystem around an IP matters as much as the IP itself — Substack, YouTube, email lists, Kickstarter, merch, and brand partnerships are all parts of the same machine, and indie creators who build across all of them have multiple ways to sustain their work. Links referenced in this episode: kidsmediaclubpodcast.com

    25 min
  7. Deddy Bears: From Shelf to Screen, Building IP Without Content First — with Gavin Lawler and Chris Dicker

    9 APR

    Deddy Bears: From Shelf to Screen, Building IP Without Content First — with Gavin Lawler and Chris Dicker

    This episode, sponsored by Innov8 Creative Academy and Deddy Bears, sees Andy and Emily joined by two guests who met through a thoroughly Irish chain of mutual acquaintances and ended up building something genuinely unusual together. Gavin Lawler is the founder of Innov8 Creative Academy — a toy inventor and entrepreneur with over 250 IPs in his portfolio and a background that includes the Irish Fairy Door Company. Chris Dicker is a kids media showrunner and creator with a long career in the industry, including time at Jam Media. They're currently collaborating on Deddy Bears: a creepy-cute collectible toy brand that has sold over 10 million units in under three years and is now moving into content, with a YouTube series in production and a feature film in development. Gavin opens by telling the story of the Irish Fairy Door Company — half a million units sold at twenty pounds each in Ireland, a business that worked brilliantly at home but struggled to translate internationally because the Irishness was too specific and the product too niche. The lesson he took from it was the need to design for a global audience from the outset. Since then, Innov8 Creative Academy has built a reputation as a rapid trend-identification and commercialisation machine — the Six7 plush is cited as an example of a product that went from a six-hour design turnaround to hundreds of thousands of units sold in a matter of weeks. The model is built on firing small bullets: get to market fast and cheaply, test sell-through, and only scale what lands. Deddy Bears emerged from a 36-hour design sprint for a Walmart Canada Halloween brief. The buyer initially chose a different product, but when that proved too complex to execute, Deddy Bears got the slot by default — and promptly achieved 86% sell-through in its first season, opening doors to major retailers across 50 countries. The bears come in coffins with death certificates, each character has a backstory ranging from ancient Egypt to the modern day, and the whole thing sits in that now-familiar cultural territory occupied by Wednesday Addams, Stranger Things, and Five Nights at Freddy's: once-alternative content that has been thoroughly normalised for family audiences and is, as Gavin puts it bluntly, extracting cash from people's pockets. The conversation that forms the heart of the episode is about what happens when these two worlds — fast-cycle toy invention and long-form IP development — collide. Chris describes arriving into a brand that already had a fandom and realising his first job was simply to listen: to go to New York Toy Fair, watch the fans and influencers, understand who was actually buying the bears and why, before writing a single word. What he found surprised him — a remarkably wide demographic ranging from children collecting blind bags to 20-something women forming deep emotional attachments to the characters, caring about packaging, wanting to know the lore. The Giphy page Gavin's wife Aoife created as a half-joke hit 10 million shares within weeks of launch, including a front-page feature on April Fool's Day, and neither Gavin nor Chris fully saw it coming. There's a genuinely interesting structural argument running through the episode about the relationship between content and IP. Chris's view — shaped by coming into a brand that already had proven market demand — is that content doesn't always have to carry all the weight; sometimes it exists to support IP rather than create it. Gavin's perspective is that the toy market has always needed to fire small bullets and test quickly, and that traditional media could learn from this rather than committing millions upfront in the hope that an audience materialises. Both agree that character, not plot, is the fundamental unit of connection — plot matters the first time, but audiences return to hang out with characters they love. The episode ends with a look at what's next: the YouTube series launches this summer, studio conversations for the feature film are underway in LA, and Gavin makes the point that the priority now isn't a money grab — the IP is already selling — but finding the right partners who respect and bring along the fandom that already exists. Key Takeaways: Irish Fairy Door Company's international struggles taught Gavin a key lesson: a product built on cultural specificity needs to offer something universally resonant underneath, and Irishness alone isn't enough to drive global commercial scale.Rapid trend identification and small-bullet commercialisation is a replicable model: Innov8 Creative Academy's approach — spot a trend early, design fast, test at retail, scale only what sells — offers a very different risk profile to traditional IP development.Deddy Bears succeeded almost by accident, getting its Walmart listing by default when a more complex design proved undeliverable, but the 86% sell-through in season one validated the concept and opened up major global retail partnerships.The "creepy-cute" category is now mainstream, not alternative — Stranger Things, Wednesday Addams, and Five Nights at Freddy's have normalised it for family audiences, and there is clear commercial appetite that the kids media industry hasn't fully caught up with yet.Content doesn't always have to come first — Chris's argument is that in IP terms, content should sometimes support and amplify an existing fandom rather than being the thing that creates it. The audience for Deddy Bears existed before a single frame of animation was made.Character is the fundamental unit of connection, not plot. Audiences return to hang out with characters they love; plot is only new once. Both Gavin and Chris build from this principle outward.Listening to fandom before creating content is essential — Chris spent months observing the Deddy Bears audience before writing anything, recognising that those fans were there before him and that the content has to bring them along, not override them.Existing fandom is a golden ticket and a responsibility — the Deddy Bears Giphy page hitting 10 million shares weeks after launch (including front-page on April Fool's Day) is proof of concept, and both Gavin and Chris are focused on choosing partners who understand and respect the community that's already there.Traditional media has something to learn from the toy inventor's model — as producers take on more financial risk in a world with fewer broadcast partners willing to fund development, the ability to test cheaply, fail fast, and scale only proven concepts becomes increasingly relevant.The consumers want to hang out with their characters — Gavin's insight, crystallised by working with Chris, is that the emotional hook of a toy and the emotional hook of a TV character are essentially the same thing, and the two industries are more aligned than either has historically recognised. Links referenced in this episode: InnovateCreativeAcademyTeddyBearsDeaddyBearsIrishFairyDoorCompany Companies mentioned in this episode: Innovate Creative AcademyTeddy BearsDeaddy BearsIrish Fairy Door CompanyKardashiansJam MediaStranger ThingsDisneyPokémonFive Nights at Freddy'sWednesday AddamsWalmartTargetSmiths5 BelowAmazon

    46 min

  8. 2 APR

    BBC's New Direction, Danny Go's Netflix Deal, and Why You Can't Speed Run Fandom — A Kids Media Club Hosts' Hangout

    With Emily otherwise occupied, this episode is a hosts' hangout — just Andy and Jo, with a car pickup deadline providing a natural time limit. The conversation covers three topics: the appointment of the BBC's new Director General, the news that YouTube kids show Danny Go has been picked up by Netflix, and some cautious optimism about original IP at the box office. The BBC discussion centres on what the hiring of Matt Britton — who comes from a background in big tech and spent a significant stretch at Google — signals about the direction of travel for the corporation. Andy and Jo read it as a confirmation of the shift from a channel-first to a platform-first BBC, a move already evidenced by the recently announced partnership with YouTube, under which BBC Children's is launching seven new channels to reach younger, social-video-first audiences. The appointment of someone steeped in data, global distribution, and commercial scale feels deliberate. The hope is that Britton brings a more aggressive commercial mindset to BBC Studios — the revenue-generating arm that has historically played second fiddle to the UK public service operation — and that the BBC uses its considerable global brand equity before it erodes further. In an era of AI-generated content proliferation, trusted, quality brands matter more than ever, and the BBC's international reputation is still a real asset, particularly in the kids space. The Danny Go segment is full of enthusiasm. The YouTube-native kids show — music-led, high energy, and genuinely well-produced in a way Jo compares to the Wiggles — has just been picked up by Netflix, and Andy argues it could give Ms. Rachel a run for her money once it lands on the platform. The broader point the conversation develops is about the YouTube-to-Netflix pipeline and what it now represents. YouTube functions as an incubation layer — a place where creators build audiences, make their mistakes, and prove their concept — before Netflix swoops in once the risk has been de-risked. Crucially, the exclusivity model that Netflix once insisted on seems to have softened: like Ms. Rachel, Danny Go is expected to remain on YouTube alongside its Netflix presence. Andy frames the Netflix pickup as something like peer review, or the moment an online-only brand gets stocked in a major department store — it confers credibility and marks a kind of graduation. The caveat is that Danny Go has been building since 2019, which leads to a broader point about fandom: you simply cannot speed run it. The Savannah Bananas are cited alongside Baller League as parallel examples of IPs that have taken seven or eight years of patient building before distribution deals and mainstream attention arrived. The episode closes on a note of measured optimism about original IP. Hoppers for Pixar and Disney and Project Hail Mary both get name-checked as encouraging signs that audiences haven't entirely given up on new ideas — that the franchise-only approach, while understandable from a risk management perspective, isn't the only game in town. The hope is that commissioning budgets eventually follow the same signal. Key Takeaways: The BBC's appointment of a Director General from a big tech background signals a deliberate shift towards a platform-first, data-literate, globally-minded BBC — one that is more willing to treat distribution partnerships with the likes of YouTube as opportunity rather than threat.BBC Studios and the BBC's global brand equity should be leveraged now, before that value erodes — the trust premium on quality, branded content is growing in an era of AI-generated content proliferation, and the BBC is well placed to capitalise on it internationally.YouTube is functioning as Netflix's R&D department for kids content — Netflix is letting creators build and prove their audiences on YouTube, then acquiring those that break through, rather than taking the development risk itself.The exclusivity model appears to have changed — both Ms. Rachel and Danny Go suggest Netflix is now comfortable with creators maintaining their YouTube presence alongside a Netflix deal, recognising that the audience was built there and can't simply be relocated.A Netflix pickup now carries a credibility signal — landing on Netflix after building on YouTube functions like moving from a direct-to-consumer website into a major bricks-and-mortar retailer, conferring legitimacy and reach.You cannot speed run fandom — Danny Go has been building since 2019, the Savannah Bananas since 2019, Baller League for over two years. The IPs that are now doing distribution deals have typically been at it for seven or eight years. Patient, consistent building is the pattern, not overnight success.Original IP is showing signs of life at the box office — Project Hail Mary's strong hold into its second weekend, alongside Hoppers and K Pop Demon Hunters, suggests audience appetite for new stories hasn't been extinguished by the franchise era, even if the studio system hasn't fully caught up with that yet.Commissioning investment into quality kids content remains under pressure, and the concern is that the YouTube-to-Netflix pipeline, while exciting, doesn't fully substitute for a healthy commissioning ecosystem that takes risks on original ideas from the outset.

    22 min
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Ratings & Reviews

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out of 5
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About

Kids Media Club Podcast is a podcast hosted by Jo Redfern, Andy Williams, and Emily Horgan. In each episode they chat with a different guest about the world of Kids Media. The podcast covers everything from trends in animation to the rise of Edtech.

Information

  • Creator
    Jo Redfern, Andrew Williams, & Emily Horgan
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    167
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2022 Kids Media Club Podcast
  • Show Website
    Kids Media Club Podcast

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