{"id":20074,"date":"2021-02-04T11:08:42","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T16:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/keynote-wildbrains-eric-ellenbogen\/"},"modified":"2021-02-04T11:08:42","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T16:08:42","slug":"keynote-wildbrains-eric-ellenbogen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/keynote-wildbrains-eric-ellenbogen\/","title":{"rendered":"Keynote: WildBrain\u2019s Eric Ellenbogen"},"content":{"rendered":"

WildBrain CEO and Vice Chair Eric Ellenbogen shared his strategies for navigating the shifting landscape in his TV Kids Festival keynote today, which was followed by a screening of the buzzy new series The Brilliant World of Tom Gates<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Ellenbogen was interviewed by World Screen<\/em> and TV Kids<\/em>\u2019 group editorial director, Anna Carugati, on the third day of the TV Kids Festival. She began the conversation by asking Ellenbogen what attracted him to taking the helm of WildBrain\u2014then known as DHX Media\u2014back in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was well familiar with the company even before I came to it,\u201d Ellenbogen said. \u201cThey were a friendly competitor when I was at DreamWorks and at Classic Media. In fact, I sought to acquire many of the same properties they ended up with, such as Teletubbies<\/em>, In the Night Garden<\/em> and Peanuts, which is the crown jewel asset in the company.\u201d Ellenbogen was also attracted to the company\u2019s \u201cfamily-first focus\u201d and a collection of assets that were \u201cwell-curated and relatable,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat they rolled up over the years was very similar, frankly, to what I had done at Classic Media and later at DreamWorks.\u201d He was also excited about the potential for mining a library that had a lot of IP that had been either \u201cunexploited or underexploited\u2014that leads to so many possibilities. Peanuts content is a good example, where no new production other than a single theatrical film had been created in decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carugati then asked Ellenbogen about his initial priorities for the company and how those changed once the pandemic hit early last year. One of his first focuses was on \u201cbringing cohesion to what, at the time that I joined the company, was a relatively disparate collection of assets.\u201d This included the CPLG licensing and merchandising company, production studios and the WildBrain AVOD division. \u201cSo the first thing was unifying under a single name. Everybody was operating under a different business, and I think that, at least in the industry, many did not know that these were all under the same ownership umbrella. As important as putting a new name to the company was integrating the team. It was about integrating all the different parts of the company and singing from the same lead sheet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next priority was \u201cdoubling down our investment in premier creative.\u201d Ellenbogen also targeted China as a key growth opportunity, and AVOD, with that segment rebranded as WildBrain Spark. \u201cThat is the most rapidly growing part of the company, frankly outpacing the amount of on-demand viewing across all of AVOD.\u201d<\/p>\n

On what media companies have to do to navigate a continually shifting landscape, Ellenbogen noted, \u201cIt is about being nimble. One thing that has not changed in the media landscape is that great shows are watched by a lot of people. With an incredible focus on creating great content and on recognized IP, it doesn\u2019t matter whether it is a holographic projection on the moon or a GAF View-Master\u2014it is all the same. It\u2019s just about great content.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, WildBrain has leaned into AVOD, Ellenbogen noted: \u201cWe think it is very much the future.\u201d Given the importance of AVOD, the company has also become \u201cobsessed by data analytics,\u201d he continued. \u201cThat is something new. It isn\u2019t just about being a content creator and distributor and a center of creative excellence. Now you\u2019ve got to know the numbers. It\u2019s ad tech; it\u2019s audience viewing patterns. Because of our Spark division, we\u2019ve become much more sophisticated about how we serve up content, and we\u2019re understanding so much more about our audience. There isn\u2019t the disintermediation that there always has been, where we would have to depend on our telecast partners. Now we are speaking directly to the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellenbogen then spoke in greater detail about the AVOD business WildBrain Spark. \u201cWe arguably are the number one or number two AVOD destination for kids,\u201d he said. \u201cWe think something like one in three kids visits WildBrain Spark. They watch full-length shows. We are a globally COPPA-compliant network. I think that safety-first has been critical in our curation of content. That has been essential to our identity and ethos as a company.\u201d<\/p>\n

WildBrain Spark did have to adjust to YouTube\u2019s new \u201cmade for kids\u201d policies last year. \u201cNo longer were the participants able to have any social media interaction with one another. And importantly, no more data was collected directly on individual viewers. That was an interesting change because we are also, with four channels in Canada, in the traditional cable-TV business. Ad sales are now more closely aligned to how we would sell cable TV, which is a contextual advertising sale. It\u2019s something we really understand well and already had built an ad-sales organization to serve that particular requirement. I think that\u2019s what has changed in the AVOD space for us and it is evolving. We are now building a very robust ad-sales team and are helping to educate advertisers on how to reach this audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellenbogen stressed that the WildBrain Spark demo is a \u201cco-viewing audience. It\u2019s not just kids. So particularly with our emphasis on preschool, we are reaching caretakers and parents. With smart TVs, an enormous portion of the viewing for YouTube is on big TVs. And when they are viewed on television, as opposed to on a computer or a mobile device, largely those are co-viewing experiences. That has evolved the opportunity for advertisers in our business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Viewership exploded amid the pandemic, Ellenbogen said. \u201cThough watch time will likely decline with a return to school and normal life, the discovery process has been amazing. It\u2019s about discovering new shows, discovering our network. It has, to some extent, counteracted the downdraft in the advertising market. We are seeing plenty of green shoots now and a return to market. But we did have this double whammy of both the \u2018made for kids\u2019 regulations, which disrupted the entire way in which advertisers bought the network, combined with the COVID downdraft in advertising. We\u2019re seeing restoration in both areas and frankly are very encouraged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carugati asked Ellenbogen about how his teams approach giving brands the best exposure and monetization they can get across the landscape. \u201cExposing the content, both new productions and library, on as many platforms as possible is the way to go. There is an emphasis now on multiple platforms and on AVOD distribution. One of our premier shows had been sought by one of the platforms on an exclusive basis. We thought it to be not so attractive and eschewed what was a ready deal, and instead syndicated the content across rev-share deals in AVOD, and I think did better in one year than what had been on offer for something like a three- or four-year deal. A lot of it is understanding the content. One of the things that we love about working with some of these platforms like Samsung and Comcast Xfinity is the availability of data. We get numbers back. We know who\u2019s watching our shows, and that informs our development process as well as our distribution strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellenbogen then talked about WildBrain\u2019s expanded relationship with Apple TV+ for Peanuts content. \u201cIn my view, the creative content that is being generated by the Peanuts team is the best work the studio has ever done. Because of the legacy as well as the new creative development around Peanuts, we\u2019ve been able to attract amazing creators, animators, storyboard artists, directors. For me, it\u2019s often keeping those creative teams together. One of the great dividends of the expanded relationship with Apple is having attracted these creators. We can now keep that team together for years and years to come. The other thing is that the creative possibilities around the Peanuts oeuvre are considerable. We\u2019re going to be exploring all kinds of characters and new storylines. It\u2019s been wonderful, honestly, for me to work with the Schulz family, who bring an incredible historical perspective as well as contemporary ideas. It\u2019s been a huge win across the entire company.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the future of linear channels, Ellenbogen responded: \u201cLinear viewership is declining, and it\u2019s been in decline for a decade. That said, many of the linear telecasters, either through catch-up or their own platforms, are smartly diversifying into on-demand viewing. It\u2019s about offering a suite of opportunities to viewers and ways of delivering the content wherever the audience is, whenever they are watching and curating that content as well. In that respect, linear still plays a significant role, perhaps more so outside the U.S. than in the U.S. I have the greatest regard for public broadcasters because they fill an educational void that often commercial telecasters just don\u2019t support. They remain an important foundation for our business and our relationships, and we\u2019re in a number of co-production deals with linear telecasters globally. They still play a big role. That said, we love the SVOD platforms, largely because they have funded incredible content. The quality is exceptional. One of the things that is exciting for me is the amount of great international content that has found its way to global audiences. That is an exciting aspect of the change in the media landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the 12 to 24 months ahead, one of Ellenbogen\u2019s priorities will be around \u201creigniting so many of the beloved brands that we\u2019re the fortunate stewards of. When you have a piece of library content that has succeeded over the decades, there is something that the audience responded to, whether it\u2019s about values or delightful characters or relationships. That gives you an enormous head start. Often the reinvention process, while preserving the DNA of what made something work, has so many possibilities. A really fun part of the job is taking these great legacy brands and reintroducing them to a new audience.\u201d And on that front, WildBrain undoubtedly has a trove of classic brands to work with, including Strawberry Shortcake<\/em>, Caillou <\/em>and Teletubbies<\/em>. \u201cAudiences were drawn to those for very good reasons. That lends those properties well to reinvention if we can rekindle the appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further building WildBrain\u2019s presence in the AVOD space is another critical priority, Ellenbogen added. WildBrain Spark \u201cis an incredible brand megaphone,\u201d he noted. \u201cWe view that network as driving not only views and advertising revenue, but also consumer products, being able to launch things, being able to better understand audience tastes and patterns. So it\u2019s a two-way communications channel for us that I have to say informs a lot of our efforts and allows us to do a great deal of experimentation. It isn\u2019t about: we have to get 20 episodes of 22 minutes done. We can do a lot of different things. For our studio in Vancouver, it gives them an incredible canvas to experiment with new IP.\u201d<\/p>\n

The session concluded with the presentation of an episode of\u00a0The Brilliant World of Tom Gates<\/em>, a Sky Kids commission produced by\u00a0Black Camel, Wild Child Animation and TG Entertainment that WildBrain is distributing worldwide. The 20×11-minute series for kids 7 to 12 is based on the best-selling book series by Liz Pichon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WildBrain CEO and Vice Chair Eric Ellenbogen shared his strategies for navigating the shifting landscape in his TV Kids Festival keynote today, which was followed by a screening of the buzzy new series The Brilliant World of Tom Gates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":20075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[5868,5723,1156],"class_list":["post-20074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-eric-ellebogen","tag-tv-kids-festival","tag-wildbrain","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nKeynote: WildBrain\u2019s Eric Ellenbogen - 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\/keynote-wildbrains-eric-ellenbogen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Keynote: WildBrain\u2019s Eric Ellenbogen - TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WildBrain CEO and Vice Chair Eric Ellenbogen shared his strategies for navigating the shifting landscape in his TV Kids Festival keynote today, which was followed by a screening of the buzzy new series The Brilliant World of Tom Gates.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/keynote-wildbrains-eric-ellenbogen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-04T16:08:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/07\/2021-02-04-ellebogen.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"319\" \/>\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=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/keynote-wildbrains-eric-ellenbogen\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/keynote-wildbrains-eric-ellenbogen\/\",\"name\":\"Keynote: WildBrain\u2019s Eric Ellenbogen - TVKIDS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-04T16:08:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-02-04T16:08:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/keynote-wildbrains-eric-ellenbogen\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/keynote-wildbrains-eric-ellenbogen\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/keynote-wildbrains-eric-ellenbogen\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Keynote: WildBrain\u2019s Eric Ellenbogen\"}]},{\"@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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