{"id":12973,"date":"2017-09-18T10:22:33","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T14:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/qa-channel-5s-sarah-muller\/"},"modified":"2017-10-05T15:43:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T19:43:57","slug":"qa-with-channel-5s-sarah-muller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/qa-with-channel-5s-sarah-muller\/","title":{"rendered":"Channel 5\u2019s Sarah Muller"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Since its launch in 1997, British free-to-air broadcaster Channel 5 has made children\u2019s programming a priority with its Milkshake! block. Combining high-energy presenters, beloved originals such as Peppa Pig<\/em> and select acquisitions, Milkshake! has endeared itself to preschoolers and parents alike. As the head of children\u2019s at Channel 5, Sarah Muller is tasked with continuing Milkshake!\u2019s winning streak while navigating the constantly evolving kids\u2019 media landscape. Since joining Channel 5 last year following a long career at CBBC, Muller has led a rebrand and refresh of Milkshake!, stepped up its digital presence and is collaborating with her colleagues at fellow Viacom-owned outfit Nickelodeon. She tells TV Kids<\/em> about her programming remit and her focus on engaging with audiences on multiple platforms.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> What\u2019s the overall programming strategy you\u2019ve put into place over the past year at Channel 5?
\nMULLER:<\/strong> It\u2019s been about taking a holistic view of what Milkshake! is and the needs of a modern audience, and getting everybody here and out in the wider world to think of it as a brand rather than a block on a linear channel. The programming has fallen in naturally behind that. We\u2019re super lucky because we already have an enviable slate of great content to work with, titles like Ben & Holly\u2019s Little Kingdom<\/em> and Peppa Pig<\/em>. Moving forward, I\u2019m looking at how I can complement that. So largely the strategy is around contemporary, fresh content that will delight and surprise the audience, but that also will work across a number of platforms.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> How has the transition been for you from public-service broadcasting to commercial?
\nMULLER:<\/strong> It\u2019s been easier than I might have expected. In the end it\u2019s all about great programming, and that\u2019s what drives all of us. But what is interesting is that I do now have the flexibility to work with partners and producers in a slightly more commercially realistic way, which obviously the BBC is not free to do. So that is very exciting. But generally speaking, it\u2019s all about the content for me, always was, always will be.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> Being part of the Viacom family, how are you collaborating with your colleagues at Nickelodeon?
\nMULLER:<\/strong> I\u2019m very lucky, I sometimes feel like a gem within a crown! Nick and Channel 5 have always worked very successfully together. It\u2019s a long and viable relationship dating right back to the first days of Peppa Pig<\/em>. We\u2019ve always sat naturally together. I get all the support of being part of Viacom. And there is the opportunity to develop synergies and work together [with Nickelodeon] on titles that might be of interest and to share and swap and inform. It\u2019s a fabulous experience; I do feel blessed.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> The U.K. has so many children\u2019s services, linear and digital. What makes Channel 5\u2019s offerings distinctive in that crowded environment?
\nMULLER:<\/strong> Well, I would like to say we\u2019re probably in a crowded environment of one because we are the only permanent children\u2019s block with its own identity that sits on a national channel on a daily basis. So we\u2019re already in a different place. We forget, as media professionals, that not everybody has access to absolutely everything. The fact that you can reach children in all households, even if they are with carers or grandparents who might not have all the bells and whistles of access to all channels, is really important; I\u2019m quite proud of that. That\u2019s number one. And then the presenters, real people who give a personality to the content. It turns out that this is a brilliant way of engaging the audience. And because they are unique, it makes us feel unique. Only we and CBeebies are working in this way in the U.K. We\u2019re offering our young audience a relationship, a friendship as it were, because there\u2019s a very definite dialogue between the audience and the presenters in terms of sending in paintings, competitions, birthday cards, shout-outs, all of those kinds of things. It adds to the feeling that Milkshake! is in your front room with you and is part of your family. We\u2019ve also got a uniquely British feel that not everyone else has the luxury of. And we\u2019re careful now to make sure we\u2019re everywhere children are.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> Tell us about the brand refresh this summer.
\nMULLER:<\/strong> We\u2019re all incredibly proud of it. Milkshake! had looked the same for the best part of 20 years. We worked with some very talented designers. Here\u2019s another left-field way that we are working with our friends at Nickelodeon. One of their in-house designers has worked with my team to deliver something truly magical that resonates with children and has future-proofed us for the coming years. We have a whole suite of assets now that take us across all of the places we have the ambition to be. [The refresh reflects] what is special at Milkshake!\u2014the craft, the joining in, the feeling of sending your painting in and then seeing it on-screen. It has resonated with everybody. It has a lovely hand-drawn feel to it. It put children at the center, when in the past that was not necessarily the case\u2014it was probably a \u201990s approach, with our presenters dancing at the front. We\u2019ve circled our wagons around our young audience. We\u2019re really happy with how it\u2019s gone. I\u2019ve done all sorts of things where you refresh or you bring classics back, and the key is for no one to notice you\u2019ve done it. No one has noticed we\u2019ve done it! It couldn\u2019t be more different, but no one has written in to complain about any aspect of it. That to me is more than 1,000 letters saying, you\u2019ve done well. It\u2019s the half a million letters we haven\u2019t<\/em> had from our audience complaining that we changed everything they loved! Isn\u2019t that odd? It sounds counterintuitive, but that\u2019s how you know, everyone has carried on loving it. We\u2019re up year-on-year and month-on-month, quite emphatically so.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> You mentioned Peppa Pig<\/em> and Ben & Holly\u2019s Little Kingdom<\/em>. What other shows are driving viewing at present?
\nMULLER:<\/strong> One of our top shows at the moment is Noddy Toy<\/em>land Detective<\/em>. There have been lots of iterations of Noddy<\/em>\u2014it\u2019s a classic property in the U.K., possibly quite old fashioned, but the team at Universal and DreamWorks Animation have worked hard to turn out something modern and vibrant. The audience is responding well to that; it\u2019s number one on most weeks. We\u2019ve introduced Floogals<\/em>, which is made in the U.K., and it\u2019s doing very well. And then we have Digby Drag<\/em>on<\/em>, which is a very British show and a great example of how Nickelodeon and Channel 5 work together.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> What are some of the new commissions you have in the pipeline?
\nMULLER:<\/strong> We are commissioning further series of favorites like Noddy <\/em>and Floogals<\/em>. We have a character called Milkshake! Monkey, who is very, very popular with children. He is puppeteered by Helena Smee, who is just great. We\u2019ve been looking for a while at how we might make more of Monkey. He features heavily in our short-form, but we\u2019re aiming to make a live-action preschool comedy with him. We have a couple of other things that will be announced soon. And then it\u2019s short-form. Short-form works in a number of ways for us. It helps us to fill the schedule in an engaging way, and it\u2019s also now getting a second life on the website or on YouTube. Short-form for us is largely presenter-led. It\u2019s them sharing their passions, it\u2019s cookery inserts, how-to dances, songs\u2014they\u2019re a very musical, talented bunch. Things like that will absolutely form the backbone of the more exciting, bigger commissions that we\u2019ll be making in a couple of months.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> You said the channel has a very British feel. Is there room for foreign acquisitions on the schedule as well?
\nMULLER:<\/strong> There are some very well-known international titles that we take via Nickelodeon. And then when we were looking at how to refresh the schedule and bring some new and exciting titles to the audience, quickly\u2014you know how long it takes to get something on-screen for commissions\u2014we picked up a handful of shows, like Simon <\/em>from GO-N International in France. We dropped him into the schedule to complement what else we were doing and it\u2019s worked well from the get-go. I\u2019m a big fan of a judicious acquisition. There\u2019s some great content out there.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> At MIPJunior last year you talked about how kids\u2019 producers were still grappling with nonlinear storytelling and engagement. How is Milkshake! approaching the issue of digital content?
\nMULLER:<\/strong> You know how strongly I felt about it! Some of that was based on the great research I\u2019d seen, and understanding where young audiences were. We know that kids are early adopters. In the children\u2019s sector, like it or not, we\u2019ve got to get on and embrace some of those changes. Children are everywhere they can be and they demand and expect you to be there, and if you\u2019re not they\u2019ll move on to someone else. So I like to call the transmission block the shop front of Selfridges\u2014you see lots of lovely things in the window, and they encourage you to come in and experience more of what\u2019s on offer in the store. We\u2019re looking for a second life for existing content, new complementary content and exclusive content for YouTube and the website. We\u2019re also looking very carefully at what a curated social-media campaign looks like. Although small children aren\u2019t on social media, their parents are. When you have very small children, if they love something you love it too and you want to be part of it and share it with other families and carers who think the same. So we\u2019ve started to do more with our presenters and our content characters across Facebook and Instagram. It\u2019s thinking about how all of those elements sit together. You\u2019ve got to recalibrate your brain a little bit; everybody has to. Other\u00adwise, these other equally important components will be treated as afterthoughts, and you cannot do that. It\u2019s all got to be part of one constantly evolving, growing, supportive whole.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> What do you see as the biggest challenges facing the kids\u2019 content sector in the U.K. at present?
\nMULLER:<\/strong> The kids\u2019 content production community in the U.K. is incredible, particularly at preschool. They\u2019ve been responsible for some of the most abiding, most successful, most loved hits. So I\u2019m in a great place. There\u2019s no shortage of ideas and talent. The industry has always been creative in its approach to funding and finding ways of closing the gap on investment. That has not changed. It\u2019s about looking at what the revenue streams are for the emerging platforms. And working out how to measure that success because we don\u2019t have those metrics in place quite as well yet. This is not the first or last time that the children\u2019s industry will be on the frontier of something special and new. I have complete confidence in them to tackle it, as they did when video, SVOD\u2014all of the different things that were going to kill us all forever\u2014first came on the scene. All they do is give you other options and make you stronger. So I\u2019m broadly optimistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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