BBC Studios conjures up wizards and a potato superhero for 2024

Cecilia Persson discusses the content strategy for BBC Studios’ Kids & Family division she oversees and offers a glimpse of some of the new shows coming down the production pipeline via C21’s Digital Screenings portal.

It has been almost two years since BBC Studios (BBCS) launched its Kids & Family division, which saw the BBC’s in-house children’s production team join the commercial business. Since then, the department has built up a robust slate of kids’ content under the leadership of MD Cecilia Persson that includes third-party produced hits Hey Duggee and Bluey.

Hey Duggee (196×7’) and Bluey (153×7’) are two of the series BBCS Kids & Family is showcasing on its Digital Screenings playlist this week, alongside fellow animated preschool series Supertato (52×7’), Stan Can (52×11’) and JoJo & Gran Gran (129×11’/1×22’), plus animated family special Peter & the Wolf (1×30’).

In the live-action space, the playlist includes natural history series Deadly Mission Shark (10×30’), and musical drama Nova Jones (20×24’/10×25’), both of which are aimed at kids aged six-plus. The live-action slate also features three comedies for the same age demographic: Popularity Papers (26×22’), Lagging (10×24’/10×30’) and Pickle Storm (10×22’).

Produced by Black Dog Television and premiering on CBBC this year, Pickle Storm is about a family from a parallel universe who find themselves struggling to adjust to a whole new way of life. “It follows the adventures of nine-year-old Pickle Storm, her wizard father and warrior mother, as they flee their home of Kleftania – a fantasy world of magic and dragons – and seek refuge in the everyday UK town of Middlington,” Persson says.

“That feeling of being a fish out of water and striving to find your place is something we’ve all felt, but there is a feel-good factor to it and the humour is smart and quick with jokes everyone of all ages can laugh at.”

For the preschool audience, a highlight for Persson is magical sitcom, Rafi the Wishing Wizard, which is on the slate for this year but too early for the Digital Screenings playlist. A BBCS Kids & Family original currently in pre-production, the show centres around the titular character and her apparently ordinary family, who run a bakery in an ordinary town but who are actually an extraordinary household of modern-day wizards.

“We felt we’d seen an influx of preschool superhero shows but that there was a gap for magic and transformation in the preschool space,” Persson says. “Rafi has universally appealing themes, great storytelling, relatable characters and oodles of magical fun. Set in Manchester in the UK, the stories it tells will be universally recognised as family stories in everyday situations.”

Both Pickle Storm and Rafi the Wishing Wizard were commissioned by the BBC Children’s department at the public broadcaster, with Pickle Storm coming from external producer Black Dog and Rafi an original production from BBCS Kids & Family, but the BBCS division also coproduces with and distributes content for third-party broadcasters and streamers.

“Coproductions are integral to our strategy; we take a bespoke approach to each one and consider all our coproductions to be long-term partnerships,” Persson says. “Fully funded content is becoming more difficult to secure, so funding models are becoming more complex. Coproductions are a great way to share risk and reward.

“There are many positives to working with multiple partners. Obviously, they give an additional budget boost that can help more ambitious projects get off the ground, but they also provide us with different and valuable creative perspectives.”

BBCS Kids & Family partnered with Tencent in China for animated series Supertato, which follows the adventures of the world’s first potato superhero as he tackles the mischievous Evil Pea in the supermarket aisles.

“Our partnership with Tencent on Supertato is a wonderful example of what coproductions can achieve. We felt they were the right partners from the beginning as we were creatively and editorially aligned, so it is incredibly easy to work together,” Persson says.

“We benefitted greatly from Tencent’s creative input, expertise and cultural insights. With Supertato we told new stories that we might not have done if we hadn’t partnered with Tencent, and the series is all the better for it.”

Supertato is based on the book series of the same name by British authors Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet and caters to a current trend in buyers preferring established IP to original ideas.

BBCS Kids & Family’s strategy, however, is to have a mix of known and original IP on its slate. “We are building a diverse slate across animation, live-action/scripted, formats and storytelling. Our global growth strategy is about building popular franchises, taking IP and turning them into global hits,” Persson says. “In the current market there is no doubt that buyers have leaned towards well-known IP, which comes with an inherent audience, in order to secure cut-through with audiences.

“The desire for fresh, new ideas hasn’t gone away, though. How else will we find the next big hit, the next Bluey or Hey Duggee? It’s just there is more caution around new ideas and with that comes more challenges to getting original ideas greenlit. Having said that, we are continuing to actively seek and develop new ideas.”

Caution around original commissions and uncertainty around future funding are challenges Persson identifies in the sector at present, but they mean coproductions remain “a core feature” of the business. Meanwhile, the exec says the impact of the strikes in the US last year could lead to opportunities for existing content, as well as an increase in demand for formats.

“The impact of the strikes and a lack of new programmes coming through the pipeline means the market will be looking for readily available content. We have seen an uptick in interest in content that is delivering now, so there are definitely opportunities to tap into there. And there could also be opportunities in formats as these have a faster turnaround than animation and live-action,” Persson says.

In light of that, BBCS Kids & Family is “testing the waters” in formats, according to the exec, who added that the division is also branching out into the young-adult space.

““Kids & Family is an end-to-end business so we will continue to build on that to support established franchises like Hey Duggee, Bluey and our fledgling brand, Supertato. We will continue to focus on animation and high-end live action; this strategy is already paying off with Rafi, which we are eager to take to market. And we have a young-adult live-action series in our development pipeline based on an incredibly successful book property that we are really excited about,” Persson says.

“We will continue to seek partners who share our ambition and vision to create outstanding kids and family content that will be seen around the world. We constantly listen to what kind of content broadcasters are looking for and what their longer-term development strategies are, alongside taking briefs on more immediate priorities.

“Of course, we are all looking for content that inspires kids, has great storytelling and characters at the heart, which explores subjects that kids identify with and which have universal appeal. They know we can bring all those elements to the table.”