Sander Schwartz and Bob Higgins

Last year, FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME) announced it was setting up a Children and Family Entertainment division, headed by Sander Schwartz. This year at MIPCOM, Schwartz revealed the unit’s first slate of programs, one that targets a wide range of demographics, from preschoolers to tweens and teens. Schwartz and Bob Higgins, senior VP of the division, have also signed development deals with top talent and broadcasters in the children’s business, such as a Dan Clark (Brats of the Lost Nebula, The Save-Ums and Team Smithereen); Josh Selig (The Wonder Pets and 3rd & Bird), with whom FME will co-develop and co-produce a preschool mixed-media animated series entitled Jo B. G. Raff; and CBeebies, with whom FME will produce a new CGI animated fantasy-adventure preschool series. As Schwartz and Higgins explain in this interview, they are always on the lookout for new, original ideas.

TV KIDS: FME announced the Children and Family Entertainment division a little more than a year ago. This must have been a busy year for you.
SCHWARTZ: We have been assembling our first slate of shows. Last year we announced the business and our strategy and we’ve been busy implementing it. Three months after I started, Bob Higgins joined and both of us have been looking for shows, looking at properties, talking to networks, talking to key producers, creators, writers, and from that we have assembled our initial slate of programs. We’re very happy with the mix of shows, the number of shows and the genres of the shows. Our intention at this point is to close the deals that need to be closed, finish the development on the projects that have remaining development and oversee the production, all the while looking for a second-year slate of shows.

TV KIDS: You have also been forming partnerships. Tell us about that strategy.
SCHWARTZ: We have been forming partnerships with key creative talent and key networks and broadcasters; everything we do is a co-production. We bring certain elements to it—creative and business expertise as well as distribution of the shows and of all the ancillary rights, and of course we put in a talented showrunner, write, and producer—and [if you add] a network partner, you have a pretty compelling mix of partners and a complementary skill set.

TV KIDS: As you look for a second-year slate, are you following the same philosophy: you look for partners and at different genres of programming?
SCHWARTZ: Exactly, we’re looking for a diverse portfolio and the best in class shows that we can come to the market with. We look at a lot of things that come through the door, and that people we know and have relationships with bring us, but we only select one or maybe two in a year in each genre. We have to be very selective and place our bets carefully and be confident and go to our buyers and say, “We’ve looked high and low, this is a great show; we believe it’s the best in class this year and here’s why.” We’re doing live-action shows, like My Babysitter is a Vampire [from Fresh TV in Canada], that we think stand out from the crowd. The other shows, whether they are animated or live action, we hope will have the highest production values, unique looks and styles and with unique talent, like Tom McGillis or Josh Selig or Dan Clark. We have a series development deal with him. He created the The Save-Ums, and a series of shorts, Team Smithereen for Disney XD with weird squishy puppets with CGI after-effects. He has a singular voice, like Josh, and like the team at Fresh TV. Those people are exciting to be in business with because you know you are going to get something that is really fresh.

To see a clip of My Babysitter is a Vampire, click here.

TV KIDS: How many shows do you want to have each year?
SCHWARTZ: We want to do four or five or maybe six shows per year. We’d like to have one in each basic genre and then maybe one extra.

The basic genres are preschool, kids’ comedy 6-11, boys’ action adventure 6-11, and tween/teen. You can break those primary categories down even further. On the preschool side, for example, there are really two distinct categories, toddlers to 3-4, then the shows that are 4-6 that have the more complex storytelling and a little more complex characters. There are different genres in kids’ comedy, too, so we wouldn’t want to do two really young soft cuddly shows and launch them at the same time in the same year. There are ways of having a diverse offering even within categories, but basically [we want to do] one show in each category per year to balance the portfolio.

TV KIDS: Do you think of multiplatform extensions beyond the TV screen as you are developing a show, or at that point is your focus on creating the best possible story?
HIGGINS: If you have great characters, great stories and a great voice behind it all, the other stuff will generally come. You have to plan for it and it’s best when done organically. For instance, for this show we are doing with CBeebies, we have the entire Internet strategy that is part of the initial development. We know that there is a way kids will play with the characters online and mimic them online that can help them enjoy the show more and learn the movements, it’s a movement-based show. So it works really, really well that way. I think that people who just start with a strategy that says, “We’re going to do this, this, this and this,” and then stick in the creative, it might not work that way.

TV KIDS: How do you feel about 3D in children’s programming? Nintendo is coming out with a 3D DS, as kids are such early adopters of new technologies, how will that impact kids’ shows?
SCHWARTZ: What I see coming as a result of the Nintendo double screen 3D and the Toshiba [a no-glasses] 3D set and kids adopting them is a lot of people trying to figure out how to be the first to market with 3D. I don’t think we are going to do that and the reason is that if you are the first to market with something that very few people can watch, I don’t think there is any great benefit in that. What I think will probably happen is, you’ll find a lot of people doing a segment in 3D but the rest [of the show] will be 2D. But I would really like to make the first high-quality 3D that hits the screens at a time when there is reasonable penetration so that people can see it.

But in the next few years, as that penetration picks up and there are more channels that broadcast in 3D and sets to receive it, which I think is dependent on the [viewing experience being] glasses-free, I think that is going to have a big impact on producers and what they produce and how they produce it. A lot of things don’t need to be in 3D. If you are doing a flat animation show in 3D, what is the point of that? But if you are doing a space show or a sporting show, that’s going to have a really significant impact in the next few years.

TV KIDS: At this point, how much more expensive is 3D compared to CGI?
SCHWARTZ: I’ve had some research done and 3D is 15 percent to 20 percent more expensive. If we had had this discussion last year, it would have been closer to 50 percent than 15 percent. There is always going to be some more cost because there is an additional process involved, but it will go down dramatically too and at some point I wouldn’t be surprised if it was within 5 percent to 10 percent [more expensive that GCI].