{"id":24157,"date":"2022-11-11T08:50:49","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T13:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2022-11-14T09:43:23","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T14:43:23","slug":"actfs-jenny-buckland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/actfs-jenny-buckland\/","title":{"rendered":"ACTF\u2019s Jenny Buckland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jenny Buckland, CEO of the Australian Children\u2019s Television Foundation (ACTF), talks to <\/em>TV Kids about how the foundation has grown over the past 40 years, what it is up to now and the value it provides to the Australian industry.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Australian Children\u2019s Television Foundation (ACTF) began operating in 1982 with the support of the Commonwealth Government to develop and produce quality programming for Australian kids. Now, 40 years strong, the ACTF continues to enrich children\u2019s lives through expanded responsibilities, including investing in programs from independent producers across the country.<\/p>\n

\"***Image***\"TV KIDS:<\/strong> What are some of the values or directives that you keep top of mind when choosing where to direct funding? How have they evolved since the ACTF was founded?
\nBUCKLAND: <\/strong>Things that we keep top of mind when we\u2019re talking about shows are diversity and inclusion, sense of humor, having fun. Some people don\u2019t consider that [last one] a value, but at the ACTF, we do. Also, programs that showcase perseverance and resilience, overcoming obstacles. We\u2019re always looking for children to be the protagonists as opposed to shows that are about children. And a sense that we\u2019re striving to be our best selves. We don\u2019t shy away from doing difficult subject matter, but we want to do it in a way that is useful to the audience and in a way that brings hope. We hope that across our suite of shows, there\u2019s something for everyone and that everyone can recognize themselves and see themselves on screen.<\/p>\n

In terms of how that\u2019s evolved over the years, it\u2019s evolved the way our country and community has evolved. Back in the early days of the ACTF, I\u2019m sure there was a sense that we cared about diversity and inclusion, but I think that in those days, that would\u2019ve been done in a more token way. Clearly, that wasn\u2019t an issue with a great show like Round the Twist<\/em>, and nobody even thought about it as being an issue. Today, we are such a diverse community that it\u2019s really essential that every show considers that angle. Also, when the ACTF was making shows itself, they were produced very close to where the ACTF actually is. Australia is a really big country. It followed a bit of a formula. Now that we work with such a broad array of producers and people, there\u2019s a great breadth.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> What are you currently on the lookout for?
\nBUCKLAND:<\/strong> Because we\u2019re in this position at the moment where we have significant additional funding, we\u2019re kind of looking for everything. [We\u2019re] really happy that we can be looking at shows from preschool content right through to YA content. But, we are always looking for the sweet spot for us, which is the 7- to 11-year-old age group. Particularly content for that age group that is funny, relatable, engaging. The most successful shows for the audience have been for that age group. They still enjoy television at that age, and they do like to laugh.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> You\u2019ve been CEO of the foundation for 20 years. How has it grown since you joined, and where do you see it headed in the future?
\nBUCKLAND:<\/strong> When I started, we were still making most of our content ourselves as an in-house production house. Because we do receive support from the government, the ACTF developed itself as an in-house production house. There was this independent production sector producing children\u2019s shows that had grown up all around us. We decided to transition\u2014we called it \u201cfrom \u2018making it\u2019 to \u2018making it happen\u2019\u201d\u2014to be able to support a wider array of shows. That\u2019s the most significant evolution since I began. We work with people all around the country to do it. That has enabled us to do a more diverse array of programs, from big series in Western Australia\u2014in the early days, Lockie Leonard<\/em>\u2014to just recently, a series that went out on Netflix that was [made] in the Northern Territory, MaveriX<\/em>. We\u2019ve been able to spread ourselves more broadly.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it\u2019s evolution going alongside the evolution that\u2019s happening in the industry as well. The production standards and the quality just get better and better. Back when I started, if we were selling shows, broadcasters used to say, \u201cCan I put that show\u2019s episodes in any order?\u201d They weren\u2019t going to put them on in a random order, but they assumed people were going to dip in and out of shows. Now, it\u2019s important that each episode has a compelling ending and is \u201csticky.\u201d There\u2019s a lot of thought that goes into that and keeping your audience. I think it\u2019s [become], in many ways, more challenging, but they\u2019re really exciting challenges. It\u2019s been great to watch that evolution.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> The Commonwealth Government revealed additional funding of A$20 million ($13 million) over two years, beginning July 1, 2021. What have you achieved with this extra funding so far, and what is the goal for it within the next eight months?
\nBUCKLAND:<\/strong> We\u2019ve supported about 14 shows. Around A$9 million ($5.9 million) has been spent. It has triggered just about A$90 million ($59 million) worth of production, and that\u2019s production that\u2019s taken place in Melbourne, in Sydney, in the Northern Territory. It includes animation. It\u2019s been the whole gamut. It\u2019s included shows for younger kids, the middle ages and right through to YA. We\u2019ve been really pleased about that spread. In the next [eight] months, we\u2019re hoping that perhaps there will be one or two children\u2019s films in there, that we\u2019ll be doing even more First Nations content. One of the shows we did is a live-action show shot in the top end of Australia: Barrumbi Kids<\/em>. We\u2019ve also supported another series, an animated show, Little J & Big Cuz<\/em>. They\u2019re both First Nations shows. They\u2019re beautiful. We hope we\u2019ll be doing more of that. We hope there will be some second seasons of shows we\u2019ve supported coming through. So, a whole array of things.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS:<\/strong> How does the ACTF\u2019s work bolster both the Australian TV industry\/economy and the kids\u2019 industry at large?
\nBUCKLAND:<\/strong> Children\u2019s television provides really great career opportunities. It\u2019s often the genre where people are a bit willing to have a first-time director or production manager stepping into a line producer role\u2014especially now that adult drama is a short number of episodes [and is] really about marquee names, and here in Australia, we\u2019ve lost Neighbours<\/em>, which was an amazing training ground. A lot of writers and directors got really great training on that show. In some ways, children\u2019s television may become even more important in that sense in the future. It provides that insight, the opportunities, the jumping-off point. It also lets people be really creative, frankly. Children\u2019s television is often a lot more imaginative in some ways. People sometimes come up with what seem like rather kooky things in kids\u2019 television. I think it offers an awful lot for the industry, and, because we\u2019re supporting shows all around Australia, the local economies and the towns where shows are being shot.<\/p>\n

TV KIDS<\/strong>: What, above all, do you hope that the ACTF is accomplishing?
\nBUCKLAND:<\/strong> I hope we are accomplishing shows that touch children and enhance their experience, add to their lives. Because we\u2019re turning 40 this year, through our own newsletter, we\u2019ve been looking back at some of the great shows in the past. What\u2019s really clear is people have very, very fond memories of these shows. They touched them, they inspired them. [Recently], we had two young writers who hadn\u2019t done kids\u2019 TV before come in. They saw these animation cells from a show called Li\u2019l Elvis Jones and the Truckstoppers<\/em>, which is from 1997. And they were just blown away by it. Other people talk about Round the Twist<\/em>, or, more recently, people talk about Dance Academy<\/em> or Little Lunch<\/em>. People who watched Little Lunch<\/em> when it first came out, they\u2019re now in university. They have these memories, and often it\u2019ll be [that] if one character was a little bit like them, then it really resonated. To have that, that\u2019s it. Little J & Big Cuz<\/em> is an animated show set in a typical First Nations community somewhere in regional Australia, and there was a beautiful photo of a little girl up in the Torres Strait Islands. She\u2019d asked for a Little J & Big Cuz<\/em> birthday cake, and they made that in a kiosk up there. For me, that\u2019s mission accomplished. It\u2019s about children having that response. And about us as a community. As you grow up, that becomes a shared cultural touchstone if you meet someone else who also loved that show when they were little.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CEO of the Australian Children\u2019s Television Foundation (ACTF) discusses how the foundation has grown over the past 40 years, what it is up to now and the value it provides to the Australian industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1412,"featured_media":24158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,21],"tags":[412,411,1843],"class_list":["post-24157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","category-top-stories","tag-actf","tag-australian-childrens-television-foundation","tag-jenny-buckland","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nACTF\u2019s Jenny Buckland - 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\/actfs-jenny-buckland\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ACTF\u2019s Jenny Buckland - TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The CEO of the Australian Children\u2019s Television Foundation (ACTF) discusses how the foundation has grown over the past 40 years, what it is up to now and the value it provides to the Australian industry.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/actfs-jenny-buckland\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVKIDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-11-11T13:50:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-11-14T14:43:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/07\/ACTF-JennyBuckland-1122.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"385\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jamie Stalcup\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jamie Stalcup\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/actfs-jenny-buckland\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/actfs-jenny-buckland\/\",\"name\":\"ACTF\u2019s Jenny Buckland - TVKIDS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-11-11T13:50:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-11-14T14:43:23+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/#\/schema\/person\/0da12602224807cc7b179b8405018deb\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/actfs-jenny-buckland\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/actfs-jenny-buckland\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/actfs-jenny-buckland\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"ACTF\u2019s Jenny Buckland\"}]},{\"@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\/0da12602224807cc7b179b8405018deb\",\"name\":\"Jamie Stalcup\",\"description\":\"Jamie Stalcup is the executive editor of World Screen. 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