{"id":21013,"date":"2021-07-02T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2021-07-06T08:57:28","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T12:57:28","slug":"ameba-tv-on-curating-value-for-kids-caregivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/ameba-tv-on-curating-value-for-kids-caregivers\/","title":{"rendered":"Ameba TV on Curating Value for Kids & Caregivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ameba TV President Tony Havelka talks to <\/em>TV Kids about how the SVOD platform is meeting the needs of its audience as the kids’ content industry continues to grow and change.<\/em><\/p>\n

Canada-based Ameba TV streams children\u2019s video content across genres, making its titles available via the web, mobile, tablets, smart TVs and other connected smart devices for kids in the U.S. and Canada. Ameba TV President Tony Havelka has his ear to the ground as the industry continues to grow and change, providing more opportunities for streaming platforms, particularly those whose primary audience is kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cCovid-19 has sparked interest in streaming platforms for what they can do: they can entertain, they can act as a bit of a babysitter sometimes when needed, but they can also educate,\u201d says Havelka. \u201cWe\u2019re not an education platform; that\u2019s not what we\u2019re trying to do. But we also find that there\u2019s lots of content coming to market that\u2019s been there for a while, that\u2019s truly educational and that was kind of relegated. It\u2019s getting to the point where the market is looking for something that\u2019s a little more than a quick fix of content by looking to watch some shows that will be a little bit more educational\u2014and entertaining.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an SVOD service, Ameba TV\u2019s focus is on longer-format content versus the shorter clips that populate other platforms. In addition to full series episodes, the service upped its movie offering a few years ago. \u201cThe engagements are quite high, and we\u2019re finding that people are watching throughout the day, but mostly evenings and weekends, where you can kind of infer that a family is coming together to watch something with a little bit of a longer run,\u201d says Havelka. \u201cWhen people come to Ameba, they\u2019re looking for a richer experience and a little more in depth. And they will binge content. That\u2019s what they\u2019re looking for; they\u2019re looking to engage with a property.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tend to focus on delivering value for the catalog to the viewer and, obviously, for their parents,\u201d Havelka adds.<\/p>\n

One of the ways in which Ameba TV has looked to boost the value of its catalog is to create read-alongs, dubbing in professional voice overs with animations for popular children\u2019s books. The company has worked with Australian author Jeannette Rowe and Sandra Boynton, among others. \u201cWe did that because it didn\u2019t step on any of our providers’ toes,\u201d explains Havelka. \u201cWe\u2019re not out there to go and make shows that our content providers make; that\u2019s what they do best, they tell stories that way. We just really took a story that hasn\u2019t been made into a video yet and made it kind of an animated book.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vast majority of the content on Ameba TV are shows from its providers from across the globe that may or may not have reached a North American audience yet. The platform has also seen some titles coming over from YouTube. \u201cLast year, when that whole COPPA-gedden hit, there was a bit of a\u2014not migration because content is still there\u2014but they were looking for other platforms to put their content on,\u201d says Havelka. \u201cSome of it, we picked up. We turned away a lot in the sense that we\u2019re not really looking for content that was chasing an algorithm. We\u2019re looking for content that tells a story, content that is kind of evergreen, that\u2019s not just relevant today, it\u2019s relevant ten years from now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ameba TV\u2019s catalog also features Boonie Bears movies and Yu-Gi-Oh! content. It carries Om Nom and Talking Tom interstitial clips. It also boasts such classics as Wee Sing from the U.S., The Sooty Show from the U.K., Canada\u2019s Skinnamarink TV and Gumby.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think that all of these things have to be HD and the latest and greatest, but these are SD shows,\u201d says Havelka. \u201cWhen you look at them, they were done in the \u201980s and \u201990s and have that kind of flavor to them. Kids don\u2019t care because it tells a good story.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds, “We don\u2019t need to see another Baby Shark video. Pinkfong came out with it, and everyone flocked to it. That\u2019s not what we\u2019re talking about when we\u2019re talking about a formula. We\u2019re talking about: kids need to see things like a good story and an engaging story, some songs and then great characters. Once that\u2019s there, the rest falls in. And that\u2019s evergreen.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Havelka points out, when it comes to the variety of platforms out there for kids\u2019 content, whether it be longer format, shorter format, HD or SD, there are three main buckets\u2014SVOD, AVOD and linear streaming. \u201cThose are all viable platforms for children\u2019s content, just trying to get your content everywhere, on all the platforms at all times,\u201d says Havelka, adding, \u201cThe problem is that there\u2019s a big difference in mindset between SVOD, like subscriptions, and advertising. With subscriptions, we focus on delivering the value of the catalog to parents. In AVOD, you have to be in the mindset of: you\u2019re selling ads to kids. That\u2019s how you make your money. You\u2019re not trying to get value so that people will renew their subscription every month and pay for access to your catalog; you need kids to watch TV and you need to give them as many ads as you possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ameba TV waded into AVOD, trying it out for four years before shifting to their current model: a subscription service that uses both AVOD and linear as a trial and a potential gateway to its SVOD service. The company had found that not only were revenues relatively low for its AVOD platform because of the nature of the business cycle over the course of a year, but that it was cannibalizing its SVOD service. “People are like, why pay for it if I can just get it over there?\u201d says Halveka. \u201cWe started saying that this really isn\u2019t working out for us. We\u2019re having a hard time getting our head around putting more ads into kids\u2019 viewing days. That\u2019s the only way you\u2019re going to increase your monetization, it\u2019s by adding more ads or adding higher paying ads.\u201d<\/p>\n

This led Ameba TV to shift to its current hybrid model. \u201cIt\u2019s a secure revenue stream,\u201d says Havelka. \u201cEvery single month people pay.\u201d In addition to reaching would-be subscribers by offering one episode of every series for free and giving access to a total of five episodes per series in exchange for creating a free account with a verifiable email address, Ameba TV appeals to potential customers with its linear channels.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur linear channels are designed to give a linear audience a taste of what\u2019s on Ameba,\u201d Havelka explains. \u201cWe put some really good shows on there and vary them all a lot. But really, if you want to watch season one episode one through season ten episode 52, you gotta come to Ameba.\u201d<\/p>\n

Havelka, who sees marketing as the biggest challenge in the kids\u2019 content industry, is more than happy to be in the business of delivering the best titles and doing it well, for the kids and their caregivers alike. \u201cKids is such an important market to do it right,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you fail in that area, you\u2019re failing kids, you lose the parents’ trust. That\u2019s something with video and what we\u2019ve been doing, that\u2019s what our core values are based on. It\u2019s so important that the entire experience is really good for kids.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ameba TV President Tony Havelka on how the SVOD platform is meeting the needs of its audience as the kids’ content industry continues to grow and change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1033,"featured_media":21014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,21],"tags":[819,5482],"class_list":["post-21013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","tag-ameba-tv","tag-tony-havelka","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nAmeba TV on Curating Value for Kids & Caregivers - 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\/ameba-tv-on-curating-value-for-kids-caregivers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ameba TV on Curating Value for Kids & Caregivers - TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ameba TV President Tony Havelka on how the SVOD platform is meeting the needs of its audience as the kids' content industry continues to grow and change.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/ameba-tv-on-curating-value-for-kids-caregivers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-07-02T13:00:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-07-06T12:57:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/07\/TheSootyShow-Ameba.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chelsea Regan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chelsea Regan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/ameba-tv-on-curating-value-for-kids-caregivers\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/ameba-tv-on-curating-value-for-kids-caregivers\/\",\"name\":\"Ameba TV on Curating Value for Kids & Caregivers - TVKIDS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-07-02T13:00:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-07-06T12:57:28+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/2a2c6d8fb3c7c8b4220b8877ecffb79a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/ameba-tv-on-curating-value-for-kids-caregivers\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/ameba-tv-on-curating-value-for-kids-caregivers\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/ameba-tv-on-curating-value-for-kids-caregivers\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Ameba TV on Curating Value for Kids & Caregivers\"}]},{\"@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\/2a2c6d8fb3c7c8b4220b8877ecffb79a\",\"name\":\"Chelsea Regan\",\"description\":\"Chelsea Regan is the managing editor of World Screen. 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