BY VALERIE MILANO There’s a new buzzword in U.S. TV programming schedules: families. In sharp contrast to the rapid evolution occurring with digital distribution platforms, children’s programmers are taking a page from an earlier era of television and resurrecting the notion of family viewing. “It’s kind of interesting because it goes against some of the reasons why television has splintered into so many channels,” observed Alan Gregg, Alliance Atlantis’ vp of Children’s Television. “The shift in the last 10 years was toward narrowcasting. But now the likes of YTV and Teletoon in Canada, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network in the U.S. — which traditionally were at pains to put on programming that would turn adults away — are all talking about it. It’s basically going back to the traditional Sunday night-type viewing because the co-viewing audiences are really an important demographic. “Co-viewing is going to define the kind of content being produced over the next little while. We will see a rise in live-action family programming and, maybe not a fall in animation, but perhaps a change in style,” Gregg said. Over the past year, Disney Channel has reaped co-viewing benefits, attracting large adult audiences for both High School Musical movies and the second Cheetah Girls movie. “Our movies tend to have a broader entry point,” explained Scott Garner, svp of Programming for Disney Channel. While movies have always been a staple of the net’s programming, Garner said the cable giant has adopted a less-is-more strategy. “Over the past couple of years, we have cut back the number of original movies we do and keep the premieres event-based. That’s what makes it special. Kids look at these movie premieres like the breaking of a big box office movie. You can’t go to the well too often; overkill would undermine our strategy,” Garner said. Whether prompted by Disney’s success or simply zeitgeist, there’s an increased interest among kid content providers in specials and one-offs — projects that also happen to appeal to parents and older siblings. “Reruns are not enough anymore and neither is just doing series,” said Michael Ouweleen, Cartoon Network svp of Creative Direction and Development. “Kids want movies. You need special events.” Discovery Channel general manager Marjorie Kaplan concurred. “It used to be that Saturday morning television [series] were the be-all and end-all for kids. It’s not that way anymore.” All the executives concurred that specials and one-offs are simply pieces in the growing puzzle of kids’ entertainment that includes mobile, iTunes, video-on-demand, DVD and broadband. Kaplan said: “Everything needs to be thought about as crossplatform” for promotion as well as distribution. She pointed out that employing a multiplatform strategy levels the playing field. “We’re in 45 million U.S. homes, but that doesn’t necessarily make us a smaller competitor, because we can reach people on other platforms,” concluded Kaplan. Such increased competition has translated into yet another new fad: increased production. “The overall trend in terms of TV for kids and teens is that there’s so much more development now,” said Cartoon Network’s Ouweleen. “The competition is forcing everybody to be better at their game and to think differently about how they operate. It’s creating an environment where people are trying a lot of different things and treating their audience with a lot of respect. “The competition has also made everyone realize that this audience has critical faculties. They choose. Just because you put something in front of them does not mean they’re going to watch it,” Ouweleen said. Co-viewing awareness plus the increasing sophistication of younger demos have resulted in programming that takes a slightly harder edge, addressing topics that can be used as fodder for conversation between family members. “We can deal with issues like drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, samegender sex,” said Tommy Lynch, who produces South of Nowhere for the N. “[These are] things that go on in the teen space that we take right out of every high school in the country. Those are not the kind of stories that we would tell to the six-to-12 demo.” Lynch added that social culture and technology conspire to age kids quicker, meaning teen tastes in programming have changed over the last decade. “The teen world today is much more complex,” he observed. “You talk about age compression: Their world moves at the speed of light. They have information delivered to them in so many ways. Also, when television started, the nuclear family was the basis of all programming. The nuclear family of that era does not exist anymore. “You have shows for teens, you have shows for kids, and you have shows for adults, but when you hit a chord, people go to it. I bet a lot of teen girls watch Grey’s Anatomy. Kids today are watching The Colbert Report and The Daily Show like our parents watched Walter Cronkite,” Lynch said. According to him, the importance of snaring older teen viewers goes directly to networks’ bottom lines. “That demo has always been the first to buy new technology and new stuff that people want to sell, so advertisers desire them. And teens also have a cultural impact. MTV was built as a teen network 25 years ago,” said Lynch. Marvista CEO Fernando Szew, whose company produces The N’s teen series Beyond the Break, said years of catering to tweens left a void for older teens that is only now being filled. “I’m not sure that the older teens were forgotten; it’s just a natural segmentation of what used to be the teenage marketplace,” Szew explained. “Clearly the world has gotten much more sophisticated — more complex — and you do realize there is a segment of the marketplace that was kind of being underserved and left behind.” The push to reach older teens isn’t just a U.S. trend. “This has been an international phenomenon,” Szew observed. But, he added, “Although every marketplace is different, we cannot forget that we in Hollywood are creating television in the U.S. that influences culture around the globe.” V I D E O • A G E OC T O B E R 2 0 0 7 32 P r o g r a m m i n g “G” Content, Co-Viewing Make TV Comeback Tommy Lynch, who produces South of Nowhere for the N Alan Gregg, Alliance Atlantis’ vp of Children’s Television
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