A Shifting Children’s Media Landscape
CMF Deputy Director, Colin Ward, offers a thoughtful take on a children’s media landscape in constant motion, and the forces reshaping it.
It’s the perfect invitation into this year’s theme, Finding the way: creativity, connection and reinvention in children’s media, and a compelling reason to read this year’s Yearbook.
Describing the children’s media landscape as ‘shifting’ is a bit like saying US democracy is going through a rocky patch; quirky British understatement fails to reflect reality. If the children’s media landscape is shifting, we are talking tectonic plates forming mountain ranges.
The new landscape is formed by the interplay of powerful digital forces; the explosion of the new content, the fragmentation of the audience, erosion of traditional funding models and the consolidation of the digital platforms that now dominate our horizons. We are, gradually, becoming familiar with some of the features on the new map, illustrated by the articles in this opening section. But we are still working out how to navigate the peaks and valleys.
These articles bring insights into how children discover and experience media content. It is encouraging that children’s needs remain broadly the same. Whatever the age range, the audience wants authentic content that engages with them at a deeper, emotional level. If your creative team focuses on that then, in theory, the algorithmic and peer-to-peer recommendations will follow.
That remains a challenge; creating content that has an authentic, deep meaning for children but will also compete with content designed simply to hold their attention. How do you succeed on platforms where the algorithm rewards the duration of the viewing experience and not its value?
The truth is you can keep a child watching video content if you employ a few tricks of the trade: lots of bright colours, loud noises with dramatic, confusing, fast-cut images that are cognitively challenging to process. You can mesmerise a child with that sort of content. But this approach cannot build the deeper connection with the audience that creates a ‘loved’ brand, like Bluey.
One thing that may provide an opportunity, and perhaps indicates a change in the audience, is that today’s children often expect opportunities to actively take part in the world of their favourite brands. If producers can find exciting ways to allow the audience agency and interaction with their content, instead of relying on the passive reception of stories, then they have a better chance of cutting through the mass of content vying for children’s attention.
Everyone, including the audience and parents, is trying to figure out what comes next. Content creators, producers and distributors are looking for new pathways to where they can offer children a full range of high-value, life-enhancing media experiences. An ecosystem where all children’s content production is economically viable.
When we find a promising location, we will need to make it habitable. The first explorers build shelters to survive the wilderness. Now we need roads and bridges, a reformed regulatory infrastructure that supports all children’s content creators trying to deliver high-value content to the children’s audience. So let’s hope a few government ministers find time to read this book!
The Online Safety Act: Are Children Safer Online? CMF Submission to the DSIT Consultation: Growing up in the Online World.