Producing Children’s Television in the On Demand Age

Anna Potter

Description

This book provides a detailed account of the creative, economic and regulatory processes underlying the production of children’s television in a multi-platform era. Its collection of integrated case studies includes extended interviews with leading producers whose programs are watched by children all over the world. These reveal the impact of digitization on the funding, distribution and consumption of children’s television, and the ways that producers have adapted their creative practice accordingly. In its comprehensive analysis of the production culture of children’s television, this book provides a valuable lens through which to view broader transformations in media industries in the on-demand age.

This original and engaging book explores the creative processes underlying the production of children’s television, with close attention to underlying economic and policy dynamics. It does so through a combination of detailed case studies and interviews with leading producers from across three English-language markets. In its examination of the impact of new streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime on the funding, production and distribution of children’s screen content, the book will reveal how producers successfully created content for these increasingly influential new services.

It offers important insights into the production of children’s screen content in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and builds on previous research in the field. The addition of analysis, which provides the context of historical, regulatory and economic factors that shape production in all three countries, is important for situating the personal testimonies and providing some critical distance. The variety of productions chosen for analysis, including drama, factual productions and animation, represents the very different pressures on different genres. Previous studies have looked at children’s content as one genre, whereas this new study reveals children’s content to be as diverse in range as adult content.

The case studies show the pressures and opportunities emerging from different national and international context and offers its own unique take on matters such as diversity, gender representation and indeed the ethics of representing children from a producers’ perspective. As a contribution to industry studies, this volume represents a valuable addition to the literature and will no doubt be referenced by future studies.

The quantity and quality of original interview material goes far beyond interviews in the trade press. Combined with the rich detail of production case studies, the articulate interviews and Potter’s highly engaging mode of writing, this book is an invaluable additional to research in the area.

This book will provide a crucial analysis of success stories in the children’s screen production industries at a time of flux and adaptation as television’s distribution revolution takes place.

The book will be indispensable for scholars of children’s television and of UK, New Zealand and Australian media policy. It will also engage a wider audience interested in television production, production studies and digital distribution – including those teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It will be a valuable library resource for courses that include screen media industries and television production culture as part of their content. It will be of interest to scholars beyond children’s television because of its analysis of success stories in screen production at a time of change and uncertainty.

It will also be of relevance to the international screen production sector and industry bodies, including screen organizations such as Screen Australia, and the UK’s Children’s Media Foundation, for its analysis of success stories in the screen production industries. Also, of interest to the many groups with vested interests around children and children’s media – including regulatory bodies like Ofcom in the UK, the Australian Communications and Media Authority in Australia and other key institutions, including legacy broadcasters such as the BBC, ABC and ITV.

Producing Children’s Television in the On Demand Age 

Representing Diversity on Public Service Media: Matchbox Pictures, NBCU and ‘The Show for Girls with Balls’ 

Netflix, Nickelodeon and the National: Jonathan M Shiff Productions’ Mako Mermaids and The Bureau of Magical Things 

The Making of a Netflix Original: Cheeky Little Media and the Australian Animated Series Bottersnikes and Gumbles 

Creating Streamable, Diverse Content for Children’s BBC: Drummer TV and the My Life Strand 

From Wellywood to Amazon Prime: Rebooting Thunderbirds Are Go for the Post- Network Era 

Streaming the Local with Contestable Funding: How New Platform HEIHEI Disrupted Children’s Media Provision in New Zealand 

Emerging Trends in the Distribution, Production and Consumption of Children’s Television in the On Demand Age

Sujets

• Arts visuels
• Arts visuels
• Cinéma
• Cinéma
• Cinéma
• Cinema
• Media Studies
• Popular Culture
• Commissioning
• BBC
• On-demand
• Stream (disambiguation)
• Policy
• Netflix
• General officer
• Cultural studies
• Television
• Technology
• Diversity
• Art
• General
• Channel
• Technologie
• Distribution
• Streaming
• Film
• Production
• British Broadcasting Corporation
• Media

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789382938
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Producing Children’s Television in the On Demand Age

Producing Children’s Television in the On Demand Age

Anna Potter

First published in the UK in 2020 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK

First published in the USA in 2020 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

Copyright © 2020 Intellect Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover designer: Holly Rose Copy editor: Newgen Production manager: Jessica Lovett Typesetting: Newgen

Print ISBN 9781789382914 ePDF ISBN 9781789382921 ePUB ISBN 9781789382938

To find out about all our publications, please visit www.intellectbooks.com. There, you can subscribe to our e-newsletter, browse, or download our current catalogue, and buy any titles that are in print.

This is a peer-reviewed publication.

For Stuart

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Contents

Producing Children’s Television in the On Demand Age

Representing Diversity on Public Service Media: M atchbox Pictures, NBCU and ‘The Show for Girls with Balls’

Netflix, Nickelodeon and the National: Jonathan M . Shiff Productions’Mako MermaidsandThe Bureau of Magical Things

The Making of a Netflix Original: Cheeky Little M edia and the Australian Animated SeriesBottersnikes and Gumbles

Creating Streamable, Diverse Content for Children ’s BBC: Drummer TV and the My LifeStrand

From Wellywood to Amazon Prime: RebootingThunderbirds Are Gofor the Post- Network Era

Streaming the Local with Contestable Funding: How New Platform HEIHEI Disrupted Children’s Media Provision in New Zealand

Emerging Trends in the Distribution, Production a nd Consumption of Children’s Television in the On Demand Age

References

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the contributions and support of several organisations and many people. I am enormou sly grateful to the Australian Research Council for providing me with a Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) Fellowship that allowed me to undertake thi s research project for three gloriously uninterrupted years, from 2016–18. My th anks are also due to The University of the Sunshine Coast’s Deputy-Vice Chan cellor (Research and Innovation) Roland De Marco, who helped to facilita te its completion, and to both Roland, and Phil Graham for all the mentoring. For the use of the production stills that are included in this book I would like to ackn owledge: Cheeky Little Media, Drummer TV, ITV Studios, Jonathan M Shiff Productio ns, Matchbox Pictures, and New Zealand On Air. I owe a great deal to the numerous children’s media practitioners who generously share their time, insights and creative practice wi th me. While so many contributed to this book, I am particularly indebted to Jenny Buck land, Michael Carrington, Kim Dalton, Rachel Davis, Amanda Higgs, Estelle Hughes, Kez Margrie, Amie Mills, Chris Oliver Taylor, Giles Ridge, Jonathan Shiff, Clive S pinks, Tamsin Summers, David Webster and Jane Wrightson. I want to make special mention to the late Stuart McAra. Always enthusiastic, kind and funny, as well as hugely talented, Stuart is greatly missed by those of us privileged to have be en his friends. My colleague Ben Goldsmith and research assistant Danielle Kirby both deserve special thanks for their ongoing encouragement and practical assistance duri ng the writing of this book, as does Intellect’s Jessica Lovett for all her help du ring its production phase. To my partner Wally and children Josh, Tom and Georgia th ank you for all your support for my work, and tolerance of my frequent absences, both are much appreciated.

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Producing Children’s Television in the On Demand Age

This book focuses on the producers, production comp anies and television providers behind key examples of successful contemporary chil dren’s television at a time of challenge and change to established industrial, pol icy, technological and economic settings. Its series of integrated case studies dra ws on producers’ first-hand accounts of their professional and creative practic es in the post-broadcast era, combining historical, policy, economic and industri al analysis with extensive interview material. In doing so this book evaluates and explains what the developing alliances, ways of funding and distributing content , dispersed production practices and proliferation in on demand streaming services m ean for television, for policy- makers, for creative practitioners and for audience s. Each integrated case study describes and analyses producers’ relationship with broadcasters, platforms, policy- makers and the child audience in Australia, the Uni ted Kingdom and New Zealand. Each underscores the centrality of the producer to contemporary television making, while revealing how producers’ creative autonomy an d professional norms have been affected by the transformations engendered by Internet distribution. In the foregrounding of media practitioners’ voices and in the framing of this study through the lens of children’s television, this stu dy provides new and insightful ways of understanding how television and indeed media in dustries more broadly are evolving in the on demand age. The collection of ca se studies concludes with a chapter that focuses on a new service, rather than a specific programme. HEIHEI, a streaming video on demand service for 5- to 8-year- old New Zealand children is profiled alongside chapters on live action and anim ated, and fictional and factual children’s television programmes because it brings together the key themes of the book – how television is financed, created, distrib uted and experienced in the on demand era – and points to one potential future for publicly supported content for children. Combined, these integrated case studies a nd extended interviews with leading practitioners also challenge long held assu mptions that creating children’s television is somehow the same as creating televisi on made for adults. It is not. Children’s television is a unique form of cultural production that operates within a particular set of social, institutional, regulatory and economic circumstances. This study allows producers to explain their creative practice in their own words, offering a rare foregrounding of the most influential individu als behind the production of contemporary children’s television for linear and s treaming services. This book places its emphases on producers’ profess ional practices and outputs during a particular period of upheaval in televisio n production from 2013 to 2019, as digitization and Internet distribution transformed and disrupted media industries worldwide. The producer is understood here as the s teward of their programmes’ creative vision, who must also take responsibility for raising finance, and assuming all legal risks during production. The producer mus t also project manage the production process from start to finish, including hiring key creative practitioners, and ensuring programmes are delivered on time and on bu dget. The majority of producers interviewed as part of this book’s integr ated case studies work in the independent production sector, rather than as salar ied, permanent in-house employees. Generally then they operate with very li ttle cushioning; their careers and