Caring for kids in Cannes

By Josh Selig 12-04-2016

According to my British editor at C21, this article is supposed to be a MipTV “round-up,” so I’ll try my best to give you the highlights of last week. But for the record, in the US a round-up is the part of a rodeo when all the horses, bulls and clowns do a little dance.

As much as I would have preferred to stay home, I hauled my can to Cannes last week where the world’s TV execs gathered like dust bunnies for four days of whining and dining. It was hard to get a pulse on this year’s MipTV, perhaps because the pulse was so weak that those of us kids’ TV folks who did attend wondered if the patient was still alive.

The timing of MipTV, just two months after Kidscreen, pretty much ensures that no one has anything new to say. Everything that was pitched in Miami just gets pitched again, accompanied by two small kisses and a large bill. One LA-based format buyer noted that his hotel breakfast buffet cost more than his modest cocaine habit.

MipTV’s timing meant there was little new to say about the kids’ sector

Despite Reed Midem’s best efforts to organise a few kid-centric events, very few people other than the lovely speakers actually attended them. And the speakers were all of the old-guard linear broadcasters, which led one attendee (not me) to say that it looked a bit like a farewell party.

However, when it comes to the health of broadcast TV, I would agree with Jackie Edwards from CBeebies, who, quoting Mark Twain, said: “The reports of our death are greatly exaggerated.”

One linear broadcaster who is doing her best to stem the incoming digital tide is my friend Vicky Schroderus from YLE in Finland. Vicky is fighting a one-woman battle to make sure that a certain unnamed SVoD giant does not get its hands on any show that will air on her beloved channel, ever.

Vicky, to her credit, is absolutely fearless and so I’ve begun a campaign to hand out buttons at the next MipJunior that say, simply: “Don’t f**k with Finland.”

Several toy company execs mentioned to me last week how deeply they care about character and story, which felt not unlike having big game hunters tell me how much they enjoy kale and wheat grass juice. The success of Spin Master’s Paw Patrol has been a wake-up call to all the other toy companies who finally agree they must create shows that have actual plots if they want anyone to watch them.

In practical terms, this means that more toy money is now flowing into the production of new shows, which, in my book, is always a good thing.

Little Airplane is working on pre-production of Sprout’s Super Wings!

Full disclosure: I used to be a critic of toy-based shows and once referred to them (rather obnoxiously) as “the dark side of the force.” I’ve grown up since then, and my company, Little Airplane, now handles pre-production of Sprout’s hit series Super Wings!, a show owned almost entirely by China’s largest toyco, Alpha.

So, I am no longer a critic; I am now a hypocrite. (Both words, not surprisingly, share the same Latin root.) If there is a special Hell for indies who surrender their principles to the realities of the market, then I am quite sure they have prepared a small hammock there just for me.

Yes, there is a God and I am his play pattern.

The strangest story I heard all week was from Ed Galton at Cake Entertainment who told me he lost €500 (US$570) when he loudly and unwisely made a bet that no one at the International Emmy Kids Awards could eat a dessert platter filled with 18 French pastries.

A petite TV executive (who shall remain nameless) took Ed’s bet, ate Ed’s pastries and then walked Ed to the cash machine to take possession of Ed’s €500. She later confessed she was pregnant and would have happily eaten another 18 pastries had Ed wanted to double down.

“Things are changing so fast that no news organisation knows whether the assumptions it is making to secure its future will prove correct,” wrote Jim Rutenberg in The New York Times. Well, Jim, if you think it’s hard to keep up with adults, try creating shows that will be watched on a device not yet invented by a child who’s not yet been born.

But this is the life we’ve chosen, this is our Croisette to bear. MipTV 2016 was not the best of times; it was not the worst of times. In fact, MipTV 2016 will most likely be remembered for being pleasant and wholly forgettable.

So, will I be back next year? Absolutely. MipTV may be an imperfect beast of a market, but it does help me do what I was born to do: make shows for the youngest and most vulnerable viewers on the planet. And so, I heart MipTV.

Cue the horses, bulls and clowns.