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TV KIDS
Acquisition priorities for 2016 relate to older children’s and family content, proven program brands and innovative scripted formats, including telemovies, serials and miniseries. TV KIDS: ABC seems to be among the few kids’ broadcasters investing in drama. Why is this an important genre for you, and how are you managing the costs associated with these shows? BRENNAN: Australia has produced some of the world’s most loved children’s series, but as live-action storytelling becomes increasingly challenging to finance, our local drama expertise has clearly shifted towards animation. It is vitally important that we maintain real faces and stories on our screens, connecting younger Australians directly to their culture and building drama audiences for the future. Public broadcasters play an important role in live-action children’s production, but it is exciting to see there are new players in the market who are revitalizing this important genre. Since 2013, we’ve increased our live-action production slate with Nowhere Boys season two, Ready for This, Tomorrow, When the War Began and Little Lunch, with an exciting slate of projects in development including Monkey, Heat Wave, Trip for Biscuits and a live-action pilot initiative with Film Victoria and the Australian Children’s Television Foundation. The Screen Australia guideline changes will also open up more opportunities for Australian independent producers to apply for additional funding for live-action production in the year ahead. TV KIDS: What have you learned about how your audiences are using the iview player? BRENNAN: Mobiles and tablets have quickly become a platform of choice and primary interactive experience for children in Australia. By 2016, we will create an engaging, integrated and ABC commissions a slate of local kids’ content every year, offering up shows like the flagship preschool series Play School on ABC KIDS.
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scalable ecosystem serving digital content across a range of mobile touch points, including mobile web versions of existing ABC KIDS and ABC3 online gateways, branded children’s flagship apps and more integration with iview. ABC connects to young audiences across all available, appropriate platforms. It is vital that we create the infrastructure that can support this platform-agnostic approach and manage all of our content accordingly. In future, this will include programming or gaming that lives away from the linear channel, to allow greater engagement and discovery of ABC content. A decline in linear broadcast viewing has definitely been matched by an increase in online engagement. January holiday ABC3 iview figures increased by 56 percent on the 2014 monthly average. We have established a number of digital-first content initiatives in the year ahead, so we’ll continue to learn how our audiences are moving between ABC services. TV KIDS: What do you see as the major challenges facing the Australian kids’ television industry? BRENNAN: Changing media models and tightening resources have resulted in a reduction of children’s content investment by ABC and the commercial TV networks in Australia. This puts increasing pressure on local producers to secure ongoing funding to sustain their businesses. We have a responsibility to promote Australian projects to our international partners, but how this shapes the nature of the content we produce here is yet to be seen. TV KIDS: What are your goals for ABC’s kids’ services in 2016? BRENNAN: TV continues to dominate Australian media consumption, but we are seeing an increasing preference for local Australian stories in prime time and a slow shift towards ondemand viewing. ABC remains the market leader in children’s, but we are very focused on improving and evolving our services to maintain this competitive position. This involves a clear digital roadmap, strong brand management and a focused, audience-led strategy for commissioned and acquired content. As new VOD players enter our market—Netflix, Stan, Presto, Hopster—our priority must be to deliver more Australian stories on all screens, in order to differentiate ABC TV in an increasingly cluttered market. In 2016, ABC Children’s will play an increasing role in building a lifelong connection with audiences through diverse and distinct content, on all their screens!