Cyber Group’s Raphaëlle Mathieu on Navigating a Challenging Market

The last two years have been challenging for the whole content industry and perhaps even more so for the animation business. “After years of investment from the majors, mainly to gain subscribers for ‘new and promising’ SVOD platforms, it’s a big backlash,” says Raphaëlle Mathieu, COO at Cyber Group Studios. “Now it has become key to be as close as possible to being cash positive for all these big groups, and drastic decisions had to be made. This means reducing investment internally and, of course, reducing investment in content. The slowdown has been even stronger and tougher in the animation business, as this is mainly not prime-time type of content. However, the cost of animation remains high, and the time to achieve production (and therefore, to reach the market) is very long.”

Traditional broadcasters are going through significant transformations, she adds. “Specialized pay-TV broadcasters are shutting down slowly; this is the case for a number of Disney or Warner Bros. Discovery channels—for example, Disney XD and Boomerang have disappeared in a lot of territories—while the SVOD platforms are growing but still do not match in terms of investment what we could have from channels. Fewer people watching TV leads to less advertising revenues.”

Thankfully, Mathieu says, traditional free-to-air broadcasters remain key partners of the kids’ industry, “even though they as well need to adapt. FTA broadcasters are very often places where the whole family can still gather together. This is something very important—and I trust this will remain very important in the upcoming years. Simultaneously, the AVOD/FVOD (or ‘freemium’) market is not strong enough to help finance content or even co-finance content—unless it is connected to a broadcaster. TF1 in France [launched] its platform, and most of the FTAs are adapting to make sure that content they help finance is reachable in as many ways as possible by their viewers on their device.”

As a consequence, last year, a session during MIPJunior revealed a reduction of 50 percent in commissions. A year later, things are still more or less the same, says Mathieu. “Nevertheless, I strongly believe that our industry will recover. Kids will not stop watching content and, ultimately, will need new content! Therefore, we have to keep on innovating and developing, editorially speaking, demanding, cool and entertaining shows.”

Cyber Group Studios, for one, has been banking on the diversity of its offering. “We are on the lookout for great stories for preschoolers, kids and tweens and do believe as well that we can find content for young adults that they will love if our commissioners dare to follow us,” Mathieu says. “We aim to become a one-stop shop where some of the best talents have found a home to develop cool shows—either original or based on IPs for kids and families. We need to use everything in our power to develop content with a strong potential to become brands, and we also need to develop additional material for viewers to access this content in as many ways as possible. We also need to try to find new partnerships and to be creative in every way possible, both artistically and in terms of business partnerships when it comes to R&D.”

Technology, she says, is essential to transform these models. “The aim is to use technological innovation to help us ultimately build production models that are less expensive and enable us to bring premium content to the market more rapidly,” says Mathieu. “In that regard, we have invested a lot in real-time animation, eventually adding mocap to it.”

Cyber Group Studios has started to implement this new technology in Alex Player, which will be fully delivered in 2024. This series, co-commissioned by France Télévisions and Italy’s Rai Kids, is “extremely ambitious and daring, and we are so happy for it to have such a warm welcome in the market,” Mathieu says. The company is employing its talents and pipelines in Roubaix, Rome and Singapore on two other series in production: The McFire Family, for M6’s Gulli in France, Super RTL in Germany and Rai Kids in Italy, and Digital Girl, for the BBC and Super RTL.

“All of us need to work on how to develop the biggest IPs,” Mathieu says. “In that regard, we are proud to be producing the fourth season of Gigantosaurus. For this new season, the model is changing; we are working even more closely with free-to-air broadcasters. France Télévisions has become the main commissioner, and Asian partnerships on the series are strategic.” The show has been a hit in China on CCTV. It has also worked well in Singapore with Mediacorp and on NHK in Japan, where the success of seasons one through three have enabled strong partnerships locally for licensing.

Mathieu adds, “In this perspective, our digital strategy and innovative content are great assets. We recently launched a new video on AVOD to support the brand, and it reached 10 million viewers in just two months. Let’s keep on creating in every aspect of the word—let’s innovate together and push the boundaries. I look forward to meeting many of you at MIPCOM, and keep on thinking out of the box.”