KGUIDE_909_11 Page 4 9/2/09 12:16 PM
Nick Wilson Director of Children’s Programming Five TV KIDS: What does Milkshake! aim to offer young viewers? WILSON: I suppose the big word I always use is “stories.” Milkshake! is a breakfast-time block every morning. What we offer is strong in storytelling and it’s digestible in its size. Most of our programs are somewhere between five minutes and a quarter-of-an-hour long. We always understand that our audience is moving around a lot in the morning. What we try to do is offer the best portfolio of stories of any broadcaster in the U.K. TV KIDS: The competitive landscape in the British children’s market is intense.What has given you a competitive edge over many of the other channels serving the same age group? WILSON: I think there are three things.The first one is the time slot that we’ve got.We really only have the BBC to compete with at that time in the morning.When Milkshake! launched, we were on our own in preschool programming at breakfast time, so we got a head start on CBeebies and everyone else.And we’ve managed to maintain that kind of advantage. The second thing is, the tone of our presentation is very distinctive. It’s non-patronizing. It’s very straightforward and based around an extremely talented set of presenters.We always have live continuity, which means we can respond to our viewers’ needs, we can run competitions, we can read their e-mails.We can do birthday requests as well as promote and host our programs. And the final thing, and probably the most important, is that we would claim to have far and away the strongest lineup of preschool programs in the U.K. TV KIDS: Acquisitions play an important role in your schedule, don’t they? WILSON: Yes, they do. Our two main new series this year have both been acquisitions. One is Chiro from Korea and the other one is the WotWots from Pukeko Pictures (made at Weta Workshop) and the ABC in Australia and New Zealand. 11