{"id":16537,"date":"2019-06-21T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2019-06-24T09:35:53","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T13:35:53","slug":"netflixs-melissa-cobb-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/netflixs-melissa-cobb-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix’s Melissa Cobb"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Kids\u2019 and family content has become an increasingly important pillar for Netflix in its quest to maintain its position as the largest SVOD platform in the world. Melissa Cobb, VP of original animation, recently sat down for an in-depth conversation with\u00a0TV Kids\u00a0<\/em>to discuss her remit, upcoming projects and the potential to bring local stories with global resonance to young ones across the globe.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> At an event in Mexico earlier this year, Guillermo del Toro talked about the \u201ccreator-friendly\u201d environment he\u2019s found at Netflix. How have you fostered that?
\nCOBB:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been at Netflix for about a year and a half. When I got here, there wasn\u2019t [an animation studio] yet. I had to think a lot about what we could create that would be different. What is the experience that can be different? One of the things I realized was that so many creators in the kids\u2019 and family space are working in environments where there is a very clear brand profile to work under, and often one arbiter of that taste profile. I don\u2019t know if there had been a studio yet that was truly creator-driven, with very different styles and tastes based on the creators working there. That seemed like an intriguing idea. So that was what we set out to do. It\u2019s about bringing in the right creators. You need creators who have a strong enough vision that they can take it all the way to the finish line. We\u2019re there to help provide them with support and guardrails and someone to bounce ideas off of. It\u2019s not necessarily the level of experience\u2014we have first-time creators as well as experienced creators. But it\u2019s a level of vision and confidence to be able to run their own show. It starts with picking the right people. There are people for whom that\u2019s not a comfortable thing, and they are probably not the right people to work for us. People like Guillermo are super clear in their vision! People like that work really well in that environment. And then they are fearless about sharing what they know with the other creators. It becomes an interesting environment where people aren\u2019t afraid to say, Can you take a look at this? I\u2019m having some trouble, do you have any suggestions about this character design? They all want their work to be great for themselves.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> The programmers at kids\u2019 channels often talk about finding content that fits their particular brand values. What\u2019s your approach to finding shows that will work on Netflix?
\nCOBB:<\/strong> Again, it\u2019s about who you bring in and what the projects are. And then we\u2019re trying to look across all the projects and we have to make sure there is a real variety\u2014more comedic things and more actiony things and things that appeal to the whole family and things that appeal to different age groups within the family. We look at our slate holistically to make sure we have a broad offering, with different tastes and kinds of creators too.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> How are you experimenting with formats and episode durations?
\nCOBB:<\/strong> That 11-minute, 22-minute format has been ingrained for so long! There are some fun things we\u2019re doing. We have this show called True and the Rainbow Kingdom<\/em>, a preschool series. Something like that, rather than order X number of 11-minute episodes, Dominique [Bazay, director of content acquisitions for kids], the content executive on that, sat down with the creators and said, Let\u2019s do 200 minutes of content. Let\u2019s think about how we can divide that up in a different way. Our order size is the same, but we think of it differently. There are slightly longer specials, maybe 18-minutes long, there are short-form music videos and then there are episodes. That\u2019s helpful for kids because there are moments when they need different kinds of content. Maybe they just have a couple of minutes, or perhaps they have a favorite song and want to watch [the video] over and over again, or they have more time before bed and want to watch something longer. It\u2019s been interesting to see how the audience reacts to that. It\u2019s been pretty encouraging so far.<\/p>\n

On the other side, we have something like Maya and the Three\u00a0<\/em>that Jorge Gutierrez is doing for us. That\u2019s a miniseries, for lack of a better word. It\u2019s nine episodes of about a half hour each but done through a feature pipeline and feature-quality production. Just because something is a series doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t also be a feature-quality experience. It\u2019s suited for a family to gather together and watch an animated event series over several nights. That seems like a really interesting experience to me. We can provide different types of experiences for families.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> You\u2019ve also done some interactive storytelling. Is there more to come in that space?
\nCOBB:<\/strong> We\u2019ve aired four interactive series in the kids\u2019 space. They\u2019ve all done well for us. They\u2019ve all been well embraced by the audience. We recently announced another one, called Battle Kitty<\/em>, which uses interactivity differently. It\u2019s not so much branching narrative. You get to choose the order in which you have adventures. So it\u2019s a slightly different lens on it. It\u2019s a creator-driven situation where we\u2019re saying, Let\u2019s take these brilliant engineers and put them together with these great creators and see what they can come up with. [Battle Kit<\/em>ty<\/em>] is the first show from Matt Layzell. He had a bit of an internet following because he made these funny cartoons online, and the engineer who was doing our interactive turned out to be a big fan of his. So, we put those people together. That\u2019s the unique thing about Netflix\u2014that partnership between the product and engineering side and the creative side. We think that can result in really interesting collaborations.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> Tell us about some of the originals you\u2019re making outside of the U.S.
\nCOBB:<\/strong> Asia is a super important region for us. It\u2019s a big growth opportunity. There\u2019s a lot of family viewing in Asia, a lot of extended families living together, particularly in India and Southeast Asia. We think a lot about this audience. We now have an executive based in the Singapore office who is just focusing on finding content from the region that is appropriate for kids and families. There are a few shows we\u2019ve already done. It\u2019s still early\u2014we\u2019re just getting started! We had a couple of shows out of Korea, YooHoo to the Rescue\u00a0<\/em>and Larva Island<\/em>. Both are doing really well, in the region and outside the region. Mighty Little Bheem\u00a0<\/em>is a new show from Green Gold Animation in India. It\u2019s a very specific Indian IP, and now everybody outside India knows about it. That\u2019s doing really well outside of Asia. That, particularly in animation, is a great opportunity\u2014finding those great creators and great stories and IP in the region and helping develop them in a way that they can resonate globally. We\u2019re doing a movie, Over the Moon<\/em>, which is based on a Chinese folktale about the Moon Goddess. It\u2019s a big musical adventure that Glen Keane is directing for us. It\u2019s big universal storytelling based on a very specific story from China. [Asia] is a rich source of great stories, great art and really strong animation, so it feels like there\u2019s a big opportunity to continue to grow.<\/p>\n

We have one executive in Singapore, one in Brazil and two in London. The way we think about it is not necessarily local content for local [audiences]. Our content team is looking for creators around the world [to develop content that will resonate globally]. There are a number of different projects we\u2019re developing [in Europe and Latin America]. We just announced a show we\u2019re developing out of Africa, Mama K\u2019s Team 4<\/em>, which we\u2019re super excited about. We have a real passion for finding those creators and helping them be successful.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> How important are acquisitions and co-productions to the Netflix kids\u2019 slate?
\nCOBB:<\/strong> Super important. Licensed acquisitions are a big part of what we do. They always will be\u2014working with the independent studios that are making great content. We are, more and more, working with those creators further upstream so that we can have more territories and it makes our lives easier and it\u2019s good for our audience. It\u2019s always going to be part of what we do. The big deals, like the DreamWorks deal, will continue on. There are market forces that lead us more toward our own original content, but it will always be a balance.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> What will you be focusing on over the next year?
\nCOBB:<\/strong> International is probably our biggest growth area, in terms of where we\u2019re looking for creators. If you look at the Netflix audience overall, that\u2019s where our big growth is. There is still growth in the U.S., but we\u2019re seeing really rapid growth in Europe and Latin America and Asia. So we want to make sure we\u2019re tapping into the creators there. In animation, it takes a couple of years to make something! We\u2019re always having to look at the long horizon of where we think our audience is going to be and where their interests are going to be and where we think there are going to be more families and more kids. We have to anticipate that.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> We\u2019ve talked a lot about animation. Are you also investing in original live action for kids?
\nCOBB:<\/strong> We\u2019re doing more tween sitcoms. We have No Good Nick\u00a0<\/em>on now and a number of other series coming out this year, like Malibu Rescue\u00a0<\/em>and Family Reunion<\/em>. Those tend to do OK globally. We\u2019re looking a bit more in Europe for live action. And we have a tween tele\u00adnovela from Latin America called Go! Live Your Way\u00a0<\/em>that is really fun. It\u2019s a soapy series set in a performing arts high school. We\u2019re also starting a big initiative around tween\/teen movies, more PG-rated. Tall Girl\u00a0<\/em>comes out later this year. We just started shooting The Half of It<\/em>, a modern Cyrano story. It has a wonderful message about friendship and love.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> How do you use Netflix\u2019s treasure trove of data analytics in your content decisions?
\nCOBB:<\/strong> There are a couple of things that analytics are super helpful for. One is in identifying white spaces. There will be clusters of viewers around a certain type of content, say anime. We can look at those and say, Do we have enough for the people who like to watch this type of content? The analytics are also pretty good at being able to identify what the size of the audience is for a certain piece of content. That is quite a luxury. That helps us find the appropriate budget for something. Not everything needs to appeal to everyone. We\u2019re not in that business. We\u2019re in the business of the appropriate number of people for the budget watching something. It helps us tune and identify a budget number early on. And then, where it\u2019s really powerful, is in finding the viewers. It\u2019s quite remarkable to watch that process happen.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> What excites you most about making content for kids and families today?
\nCOBB:<\/strong> Netflix is in every country in the world, except for China. We can find creators from all over the world, and every show we make will be dubbed into every language and put into every household. There\u2019s this whole generation of kids growing up with access to a platform where they will see shows from all over the world. There\u2019s an opportunity for a more globally aware, empathetic group of kids who will be more exposed to different cultures. That, to me, is exciting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The VP of original animation at Netflix talks about bringing local stories with global resonance to young ones across the globe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":16538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,21],"tags":[3033,138],"class_list":["post-16537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","category-top-stories","tag-melissa-cobb","tag-netflix","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nNetflix's Melissa Cobb - TVKIDS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/netflixs-melissa-cobb-2019\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Netflix's Melissa Cobb - TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The VP of original animation at Netflix talks about bringing local stories with global resonance to young ones across the globe.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/netflixs-melissa-cobb-2019\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-21T12:00:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-06-24T13:35:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/07\/Melissa-Cobb-Netflix-619-th.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/netflixs-melissa-cobb-2019\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/netflixs-melissa-cobb-2019\/\",\"name\":\"Netflix's Melissa Cobb - TVKIDS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-06-21T12:00:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-06-24T13:35:53+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/netflixs-melissa-cobb-2019\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/netflixs-melissa-cobb-2019\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/netflixs-melissa-cobb-2019\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Netflix’s Melissa Cobb\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\",\"name\":\"TVKIDS\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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