For those, particularly parents, who are unfamiliar with KidScreen, it's the professional/trade organization for the children's television and film industry. The motto is "About reaching children through entertainment." It's based in Toronto, a major hub in the children's media industry, and includes corporations and independent content producers like myself throughout the world, though one does not join but rather merely subscribes to services. Two of these major services are journalistic, as they produce a daily online newsletter with the latest business information concerning kid's media, from toy deals to new shows to mergers to how Woolworth's fall is effecting British retail. The coverage includes an equal amount of original reporting and accumulated articles from other sources, and I am amazed at the amount of material they manage to cover day-in, day-out. The other service is KidScreen Magazine, a monthly print publication that covers much of the same material with longer and more in-depth articles, a portion of which are also run online.
Each February in New York KidScreen sponsors a summit or conference, and this year there were roughly a thousand delegates from all over the world. This is where many of the connections in children's television happen: pitches, coproduction deals, hirings, licensing agreements, etc., and of course just the more low key but arguably more important business of simple networking. That is essentially where I, a freelance writer, came in, meeting with people and presenting myself and my writing/production experience.
The first thing to praise about KidScreen Summit is therefore the sheer number of attendees, giving people access to a range of people that would never be possible working on their own. That was for me the greatest benefit. I had enough meetings scheduled--nearly hourly every day for three days--that I was able to attend only a handful of conference sessions (a plethora of classes and workshops are also on offer). Of these the most beneficial were the small-scale thirty-minute sessions with industry personnel, designed to let them discuss their companies, production slate, and the state of the industry, which thanks to the recession is more volatile--and interesting--than ever in recent memory. The three sessions I attended--for WGBH, PBS Kids, and the CBBC--were fantastic, yielding an in-depth view into the workings of three of the most important production companies and broadcasters in children's television, as well as important connections with the presenters themselves and fellow attendees.
So where is children's television going in the face of the recession? As one fellow delegate described it, that was the elephant in the room at all times. There was plenty of optimism to go around, and plenty of talent and enthusiasm, but is there enough money? Well, yes and no. There has never been enough money for every potential producer to create and air their programs. This year there is even less, but the vetting procedure is still generally the same: potential shows are culled and cultivated from a broader range of material. Judging from the delegates with whom I spoke, there will still be plenty of new items in production in the next few years. The individual budgets may be less, but new programs will still see the light of a sound stage in 2009 and 10. Nobody said anything like, "I'd like to use your writing but just can't afford new scripts right now." Rather, I'm hard at work following up with dozens of companies that are interested in new writing talent, and if my little experience can serve as a microcosm/prognosis for the entire industry, then that means that there's enough afoot to keep things afloat. There are great shows already green lit and on the way, and there are others that are just around that corner. In fact, of equal concern in the sessions I attended was the effect of digital media, DVRs and online distribution and interactivity and show blogs and virtual worlds and so forth. Children's television has weathered tough economic times before, but the advent of the Internet presents the greatest paradigm shift in children's entertainment since the spread of television itself after World War II. It's the Internet, not the belt-tightening, that is causing producers and distributors to rethink their entire approach to children's media.
What other tidbits did I come across? Lots of good shows in the works just awaiting a bit of that cold hard cash (I won't name names at this point). Most exciting was that more than one company is increasing its curriculum content for over 6's (shows that at present are represented by things like WordGirl and Cyberchase). The biggest gap on the air today is there in the 5-8 range, so look for that to be filled, on both sides of the Atlantic. The environment and sustainability are growing as curricular issues, but I heard a lot about the basics like math and science as well as other hot topics like nutrition/health and cultural relations; I'm quite excited and hopeful to be involved with a preschool show in this latter category that will teach a few words from different languages each episode. Not enough to gain the familiarity of a Handy Manny or Ni Hao Kai-lan, but something that will expose kids to a broader range than is possible with those single-language shows--the point being cultural awareness, not necessarily linguistic ability.
I'm just ruminating on this as I write, but perhaps the best part about my first KidScreen was meeting so many people whose work I've admired for so many years, whether I knew their names or not, people like Brigid Sullivan, Patricia Lavoie, David Levy, Kay Benbow, Andrew Brenner, Francis Fitzpatrick, Leo Nielsen, Adina Pitt, Linda Simensky, Betsy Oliphant, and so many others. A lot of these people will hopefully be commenting on the summit over on Josh Selig's KidScreen-sponsored blog Planet Preschool. I'll be checking back on that posting regularly.
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