MIPJunior & MIPCOM: The Week in Kids

MIPJunior, for the second year in a row, started with pre-opening sessions on Friday afternoon to give kids’ media executives a jump on the weekend. And this sector arguably needs all the help it can get right now. Conversation on the weekend about what happened at TeamTO soon built into speculation about which animation outfit would succumb next to the business’s rapid contraction, a symptom of both the wider post-peak-TV malaise and the irreversible changes in children’s content consumption habits.

“We are on the pointy end of media and we don’t get enough credit for that because any shifts that are happening in the audience or in the landscape start biting us first,” kids’ media consultant Emily Horgan said in introducing her brilliant panel on Friday about adapting to the shifts in the marketplace. “Any cuts in budgets also hit us first.”

Jo Redfern, one of the panelists, stressed that those working in this sector need to understand the fundamental shifts in viewing behaviors. “We’re on an evolutionary timeline. We’ve moved from passive media consumption, and now we’re entering this time of immersive media. Tech has democratized access to the means of creation, the means of sharing. We’ve seen the exodus away from traditional media platforms, those mobile passive media platforms, to these more social platforms that facilitate co-creation and sharing. That’s Roblox, TikTok, YouTube. That’s also facilitated a closer relationship with the audience. The shift is toward a more participatory relationship with media—co-creation, letting go of your brand a little bit, letting the audience in, letting them swim around and play with it. The power almost is with the audience.”

The shift implies fundamentally reshaping your business models too, Gregory Dray, co-founder of Animaj, said in that session. “The old business models are dying. If we don’t find a way to reinvent, we will all disappear. [The legacy players] have lost their audience. Less audience means less advertising revenues means less carriage fees, and at the end of the day, less budget to commission and acquire new content. You need to find new ways and completely reinvent the way to finance new content.”

New models was a key theme of Olivia Deane’s brilliant presentation of Ampere data on Friday about the kids’ commissioning landscape. While commissions are down, Deane highlighted the opportunities for children’s content producers during her session, noting that the genre remains paramount for SVODs looking to minimize churn, pubcaster commissions have risen, and acquisitions are rebounding amid the reduction in originals.

Keeping an eye on data is paramount, she explained. Per Ampere’s own analysis, children and family was the second most-viewed genre on Netflix in the first half of last year, behind crime and thriller. “Children are not a major motivating factor for consumers when deciding to subscribe to a service. However, they still play a really important role in subscriber behavior. Households with children are not only more likely to have more devices, but they also make up a very large proportion of Netflix viewing activity. As a result of this, those living in households with children are less likely to cancel their subscriptions than those without children. So, while children’s content isn’t enticing people to sign up, it is stopping them from leaving. At a time when subscription growth is stalling, retention is more important than ever.”

Deane continued, “While streamers are limiting their budget for new, original or even exclusive children’s content, they are also acquiring large volumes of existing children’s content to appease this still very important consumer group.”

Of note, Netflix kids’ commissions fell 42 percent, while acquisitions rose 7 percent between H1 2023 and H1 2024. Apple’s commissions fell by 58 percent, but acquisitions rose by 16 percent. Disney commissions were stable, but acquisitions were up 4 percent. Peacock’s commissions plunged, but buys were up 30 percent. Of the majors, only Hulu reduced both acquisitions and commissions.

The big studios are at the forefront of content sales amid this boom in acquisitions, but “most content is still sourced from independent producers,” Deane explained.

Deane also highlighted the crucial role of pubcasters in the children’s commissioning space. Between the first half of 2023 and 2024, pubcaster commissions rose 7 percent as SVOD commissions fell 40 percent, commercial free-to-air fell 32 percent, and pay TV dropped 17 percent. “In this time of commissioning downturn, we’re likely to be reminded of the distinct value of public broadcasters, particularly when the market is proving so volatile,” Deane said.

MIPJunior highlighted the spirit of collaboration among pubcasters that is helping them retain their commitment to young audiences via a session with BBC’s Patricia Hidalgo, ZDF’s Nicole Keeb, Rai’s Luca Milano and France Télévisions’ Pierre Siracusa, moderated by Serious Kids’ Genevieve Dexter. BBC Children’s is producing about 350 hours of original content a year, Hidalgo said, and features some 3,600 hours of content on the BBC iPlayer service. Partnering with fellow pubcasters in Europe has been crucial. “We need to have investment coming from abroad,” she noted.

Keeb highlighted the importance of collaboration at ZDF, noting, “Budgets are not rising, and we want to keep our high quality. We can work on different levels because we don’t have those restrictions.”

The weekend sessions also highlighted the continued dominance of known IP. Josh Silverman, chief franchise officer and executive VP at Mattel, took part in a keynote conversation with TV Kids’ Anna Carugati at MIPJunior, discussing the toy giant’s evolution into an IP-driven company. On the broader shifts in the landscape, he noted, “The industry is evolving. There are paradigm shifts. Market conditions are changing. What makes me very positive and optimistic is the ability for us to continue to tell great stories and the opportunity for us to do so. We’ve been telling great stories as humanity for a thousand years. We’ll be telling great stories in a thousand years. The ways that we do that and the types of platforms that we will have to leverage will continue to evolve. It starts with great storytelling. If you’re focused on that, we’ll together navigate any kind of change insofar as paradigms.”

The weekend lineup at MIPJunior also saw Andy Yeatman, the CEO of Miraculous Corp USA and global operations, showcase plans for the new ZAG and Mediawan joint venture before sitting down for a Q&A with Carugati. Miraculous Corp is “100 percent focused on building out a universe of female and teen superheroes dedicated to the vision of creating the most-loved superhero IP for the next generation,” Yeatman said. The 150-member team is “rallying around the company’s purpose of inspiring future heroes to save the world and our company values of creativity, collaboration, impact, humility, honesty, nimbleness and perseverance.”

The importance of brands and franchises was a theme throughout the week in kids. Monday morning featured a screening of Obocchama-kun, a new season of the TV Asahi Corporation anime classic that was produced for Sony YAY! in India. I moderated the panel discussion that followed the screening, where TV Asahi’s Makiko Inaba revealed that a new season of the classic anime series probably would not have been made if it weren’t for the Indian commission.

In other returning IP news, Mattel said it has partnered with Aardman to develop a new stop-motion and 3D animated series featuring the penguin Pingu. A new animated preschool series based on The Wiggles is in the works. A teaser trailer for Rainbow’s Winx Club reboot, debuting in 2025 on Rai in Italy and on Netflix worldwide, unveiled how the new episodes celebrate a return to the origins of the saga. Netflix has slated the debut of Mattel Television Studios’ new holiday special Thomas & Friends: The Christmas Letter Express for November 21 in the U.S. and other territories. Animotion Media Group introduced a Detective Finnick series following the success of the 2022 Finnick feature film. CosmoBlue Media added Team Jay, an animated series produced by Juventus FC, to its platforms.

Amid all the talk of known IP, franchises and reboots though, new ideas are breaking through. The Tinies from MIAM! distribution topped the list of the most-watched shows in the MIPJunior Screenings Library this year, followed by Dinomite & Lucy from Toon2Tango. Bia and the Beats from Birdo (Brazil) was selected as the winner of this year’s MIPJunior Pitch, focused on projects for the preschool audience ages 3 to 6. Tale Wind Studio signed a distribution deal with TV Cultura for Turbozaurs, marking the show’s entry into the Brazilian market. MIAM! distribution’s animated series Our Summer of Freedom was acquired by Italy’s Rai and Canada’s TFO. WildBrain signed a deal with Hangzhou Younuo Animation Co. to handle global distribution, excluding mainland China and Russia, for the new preschool series Hey Toma. BBC Children’s and Education ordered the new preschool series Playtime Towers. Dandelooo signed a distribution deal with TeamTO for the preschool comedy series What’s Up Eesha?

And even as companies scale back or shutter entirely, new ones are arriving: Thom Chapman set up Victura Media, a new entertainment franchise company based in the U.K. and Canada, along with company director and executive producer Gráinne McNamara. Gigglebug Entertainment is boosting its 2D production capabilities with the opening of a new studio facility in the Canary Islands. Digitoonz Media & Entertainment opened a new European office in Madrid, Spain, led by Maria Bonaria Fois. Siesta Entertainment, a new animation distribution and brand development company, launched in Barcelona.

Catch up on these stories and more on TVKids.com.