Broadcasters are neglecting the importance of children’s programming by cutting acquisition costs and neglecting good storylines in favour of complex visual effects, said Toper Taylor, President and COO of Cookie Jar Entertainment. He was one of the keynote speakers at the closing session of MIPCOM Junior on Sunday.
Taylor bemoaned the fact that in spite of children’s programming having to counter the challenges of violence, cultural conflict and school drop-outs, it also has to contend with the continual cutting of licence fees. “Why are we the only area of television where channels do not pay enough to meet the cost of a single series? Don’t we care about our kids?”
He criticised broadcasters’ support of expensive CGI effects when cheaper programmes can prove to be bigger hits. It indicated that broadcasters had lost touch with their primary objective of connecting with children.
Co-keynote speaker, Andy Hayward, Chairman and CEO of DIC Entertainment revealed that when his company first made a€˜Ghostbusters’ 20 years ago, ABC paid them $350,000 a show. “There’s no network in the world today that would pay us that for a half-hour show.”
If one needed to know just how much the entertainment world had changed for children, then one only had to think back to the days three networks dominated US homes. “The days when kids came home from school and just switched on the TV set are gone. They are on the computer and on the mobile phone. They are surfing, they are blogging, they are listening to music a€” it’s a multi-tasking universe.”
