The Children’s Media Conference is providing opportunities for the kids’ industry to stay informed and do deals with China while under lockdown.

CMC’s China Connect webinar

With the spring, summer and, potentially, autumn TV calendar in disarray as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s not an easy time to be an events business.

But the Children’s Media Conference (CMC), the event in Sheffield where the UK kids’ TV industry chews the fat every July, has taken the initiative by quickly pivoting to a new model for 2020.

This year’s CMC will be replaced by a virtual event on the same dates as the conference, July 7 to 9, the groundwork for which is being laid now, with the event hosting fortnightly webinars via Zoom on a variety of topics.

It has also, with tongue in cheek, rebranded for the time being as the Children’s Media Community and refocused its theme for 2020 from Right Here Right Now to Still Here Right Now.

The first online event was a free webinar looking at how the Chinese market is reviving itself, with a focus on opportunities for international companies looking to work in China. It was supported by the Department for International Trade, which moved quickly to provide funding for the event, according to Greg Childs, editorial director at the CMC.

The following day there were limited slots available, for a fee, to join virtual meetings with 27 Chinese platforms and coproducers looking to work with UK companies, with around 150 meetings taking place via Meeting Mojo, Childs tells C21.

Greg Childs

This builds on relationships the CMC has formulated during numerous annual trips to China with a delegation of producers, most of them from the UK, to meet local companies and attend iABC/CICAF in Hangzhou. An animation-focused event is in the pipeline for later this year.

“The number of Chinese buyers that came in tells me there’s a strong interest in the UK in China at the moment. In some ways it’s slightly easier for them than working with Americans at the moment, but I won’t go into any detail on that,” says Childs.

The kids’ TV veteran believes the children’s media community always steps up in a crisis. He puts this down to it being conscious of its responsibility to help the children’s audience handle difficult situations, understand their changing world and still have some fun along the way.

The China webinar was followed by the webinars Kids in the Time of Corona, in which Adam Woodgate of UK-based kids’ media research firm Dubit discussed young audiences’ media lives under Covid-19, and, more recently, Surviving as a Freelancer Under Lockdown. This offered practical advice to those who have been hardest-hit by the production shutdown.

“We asked our advisory committee should we simply furlough and go quiet, and they said, ‘We feel the industry is getting a bit lonely and wants to hear itself.’ It wants to have moments when it comes together and we think this is what CMC always does,” says Childs.

Next up is a webinar titled Content in the Time of Corona on May 15, which will explore what’s being commissioned and made for kids that responds to or reflects the crisis.

There’s also a commissioner conversation with BBC Children’s head of content Cheryl Taylor, whose department just had a new boss appointed, Patricia Hidalgo Reina. Taylor will be in conversation with presenter Chris Jarvis and answer questions on commissioning plans, future strategy and how a major broadcaster copes with and serves during the current crisis.

Networking at CMC 2019

Childs hopes the relative ease by which those who are interested can watch its webinars, assuming they have a laptop and wi-fi connection, compared with attending the CMC event will mean more industry starters, those in their 20s, might get involved. “These are people we’d love to talk to, it’s just we never get much of a chance,” says Childs.

Of course, not having a physical event in 2020 will be a major financial hit to the CMC. But Childs says it is being helped by sponsors who are now patrons supporting its virtual efforts.

“We’re hoping that some of the sponsors who hadn’t yet committed to this year’s event will realise the online sessions are still worth sponsoring, which will help. And there are massive savings to be had by not booking venues, which is tragic for Sheffield and the Showroom Cinema [venue], and we’re really sorry about that. But there are still staff costs. Cashflow is the big issue. But we’re working on holding the fort until we get back to some semblance of normality next year,” says Childs.

The ethos on which CMC was founded – by the industry for the industry – is now coming into its own as the children’s TV business looks, more than ever before, for somewhere to share learning, insights and inspiration as well as challenge, argue and discuss.