CMF at CMC ’24: the Debate – YouTube or Bust?
Last year’s CMC Debate led to the Children’s Media Summit which made it clear, the children’s media industry needs to be where the children are. A few months down the line, what does that mean in practice. Deputy Director of the CMF, Colin Ward, reports back on the debate that asked: “YouTube or Bust?”
Let’s start with a helpful ‘Executive Summary’ – it turns out the answer to that question is ‘Yes’; the UK’s award-winning children’s media production industry is slowly going bust and, as things stand, the only realistic hope of turning things around is to get YouTube to actively support new content for UK kids, both in terms of funding that content but also helping children to find the content.
No one in the CMC debate was suggesting that factual, drama and entertainment content made specifically for UK kids is going to vanish overnight; it is going to be a slow death. The UK’s small independent producers, the life-blood of the industry, will keep going as long as they can, fighting for scraps from Sky, the BBC and Five. Some people may try to jump across to the games sector, which will still be making content for UK kids, and there will be some continued success with high-concept animated content for family viewing. But slowly and surely our creative kids production industry is going to contract to a point where we lose critical mass and become a production annexe for global media companies – potentially useful, but always expendable.
So that’s the bad news.
Now here’s the good news from the CMC debate. The host, Gary Pope from Kids Industries, made it clear the fightback is already well underway. The Children’s Media Foundation Summit in March was a launch pad to take the argument direct to Labour’s shadow team and that lobbying will continue now they have formed the government. The other good news is that we have strong support from a public figure who people will listen to. The new Waterstone’s Children’s Laureate, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, is a powerful advocate for young people who fully appreciates the skill and hard work that goes into creating public service media content for children.
Frank was joined on the debate panel by Jackie Edwards, former Head of the BFI’s Young Audiences Content Fund, Emily Horgan, a media consultant with in-depth knowledge of how YouTube operates and Laura Taylor-Williams, Head of Digital and Strategic Development at Aardman. And together they provided us with plenty of light, as well as a few kilowatts of impassioned heat.
Gary asked the panel to define public service content for kids and there was general agreement that it is an evolving, broad concept. But, as a very good start, we can say it is any and all thoughtfully made, high-quality content for children (Emily and Laura) that reflects their lives and their culture (Jackie) and can also bring children together with family and friends in shared media experiences (Frank).
The next question was directed to Laura, representing one of our most successful kids’ production companies; does Aardman see a way they can make a series work on YouTube? Laura made the point that producers in the UK, unlike their US counterparts, do not have large portfolios and deep pockets to fund new content, so it is hard for them to compete on YouTube. Aardman is reliant on commissions from broadcasters, but when a commissioner gives the greenlight they are not giving producers the rights they need to make the content work on YouTube. Emily backed that up, noting that the clients she works with are getting commissions that come with rights structures that are not compatible with a YouTube strategy. Gary asked if the BFI’s Young Audiences Content Fund (YACF) could perhaps have helped with funding new content on YouTube and Jackie explained that the original iteration of the fund was prevented from doing that, but there was no reason why a future fund could not be set up to help plug that gap.
At that point a producer in the audience asked why YouTube should get their content for free. Could YouTube give producer’s more of the revenue they earn from the UK children’s audience and perhaps even commission new content so they share the risks of production? In the CMC Question Time session, YouTube’s Head of Public Policy for UK and Ireland, Iain Bundred, had told producers that they want to host their content. In the debate session the answer came back loud and clear; if you want our content then please pay us a fair price for it.
And that response identified the nub of the problem; YouTube is in a market dominant position and feels confident it can dictate how the new kids’ media ecosystem functions. As Emily explained, YouTube has won the battle for the children’s audience and the platform is now the dominant provider of media experiences for our children. And right now it also has plenty of very good, cheap content. But that’s part of the problem; the only new, original content viable under their ad-revenue sharing model are low budget productions, usually a couple of people working out of their spare bedroom. And given YouTube’s dominant position, it’s hard to see how that is going to change. If YouTube doesn’t want to play ball then even a relatively big UK kids’ production company can’t get a better deal to fund more expensive content, such as factual or drama.
However, governments can enforce change. As a society, we can make sure YouTube fulfils all the responsibilities to the children’s audience that come with that dominant market position. That includes taking responsibility for the range of content they provide as well as for the form and tone of the content. As Frank explained, there is some content for kids on YouTube that is just plain wrong and we need a discussion about how we can change that. So when Gary asked the audience if YouTube should be regulated the response was a unanimous ‘Yes’. The CMC delegates want to see YouTube serving the needs of the children’s audience in every respect, and that will require legislation.
To solve the funding problem, Jackie proposed the introduction of a levy on the big tech companies, which would finance the development of new public service content for kids on a range of platforms, including YouTube and TikTok. Because we need an alternative funding approach to strengthen the media ecosystem for UK kids and make it fit for purpose. The BBC and Five are doing amazing work providing public service content for children and helping to keep the production sector alive, and Sky Kids are also making a strong contribution with an innovative approach. But they are all under intense financial pressures and what they provide is simply not enough on its own. We need more, because children deserve the same opportunities to access quality, UK-cultural content as are enjoyed by the rest of society.
To solve the finding problem, Laura noted that YouTube is able to actively manage their editorial ‘pushes’ on the YouTube Kids app to feature more UK-cultural content for British kids. It is a complex, technical problem, but many people working in the tech sector believe there are also ‘big levers’ that YouTube can pull to surface certain types of content on their main platform. Iain Bundred seemed to acknowledge this in the Question Time session when he spoke about giving prominence to trusted content during the UK election.
So how urgent is this? There are many problems the new Labour government will need to address and perhaps the provision of children’s public service media is some way down that list. What would actually happen if kids were no longer seeing content that reflected their lives, their values, their sense of humour? Well, aside from it sounding quite lonely and isolating, there are other big questions we need to ask. As was pointed out, we should never forget that although kids are just 20% of the audience, they are 100% of the future. If we no longer have the confidence to tell stories to our own children, do we really have anything left to say to the rest of the world?
The situation is urgent and we see it as our job at the Children’s Media Foundation to hold the government to account to make sure it delivers on its promise to prioritise the needs of children. We don’t need a committee and we don’t need ‘further research’ to make sure interventions are ‘evidence based’, which we know is simply code for kicking something into the long grass. The truth is that we do know what the problem is and we also know the solutions. Now it is time to take action.
CMF@CMC’24: Question Time CMF@CMC’24 : AI and Kids – Talk to the Bot