Our inaugural Gen A to Z strand delivered insights from a range of kids’ media producers, distributors, brand-builders, creative consultants, monetization experts, and YouTube engagement pros on navigating the industry’s pain points.
Over the past several weeks, in the run-up to Kidscreen Summit and MIP London (which housed a packed Kids & Teens Summit that I’ll be recapping for our ScreenMDM Extra subscribers), I caught up with Animaj’s Greg Dray, WildBrain’s Kate Smith, Acamar Films’ Mikael Shields, Lightboat Media’s David Levine, Cookbook Media’s Claudia Scott-Hansen and Rob Bencal, Tulipop Studios’ Helga Árnadóttir, VIEWED’s Terence Mbulaheni, and TeamFalco’s Nico Lockhart. You’ll find all the interviews here.
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Surviving in this fragmented, digital-first landscape is not just about thinking multiplatform—navigating the business now requires a reevaluation of everything. The old model is dead. From independent boutiques to major conglomerates, the mission is now to define a new framework for production, distribution, and monetization.
Across these diverse conversations, several key themes emerged: YouTube’s dominance, the art and science of reinventing legacy IP, the need for an always-on mentality, innovation in format and production techniques, and the benefits of being boutique and nimble enough to move quickly.
YouTube has become the de facto primary “TV network” for children globally. The problem is the massive gap between engagement and revenue, a crisis that threatens the long-term viability of high-quality content for kids. Indeed, we’ve seen many kids’ companies go under in recent years because the fundamentals of monetizing kids’ content have been rewritten.
Dray at Animaj highlighted some staggering data points: approximately 400 million kids engage with YouTube monthly; kids’ and family content represents 15% of global viewership but attracts less than 2% of total ad revenue. Animaj is looking to tackle this existential crisis in kids’ media through its Lumee joint venture with Hasbro Entertainment, selling across their combined footprint on the platform. It provides advertisers with video-by-video visibility while ensuring COPPA compliance at scale.
WildBrain is also among the small set of companies with ad sales capabilities for kids’ content on YouTube. Smith asserts that WildBrain has effectively become the “kids’ TV network of today.” By leveraging rich data across its digital network, WildBrain tracks awareness, affinity, and engagement in real-time.
YouTube engagement pro Lockhart at TeamFalco says it’s paramount to identify specific “audience neighborhoods” where IP can bubble up organically. Rather than heavy paid-media spend, which often yields poor ROI on digital platforms, producers and IP owners should focus on research and trend analysis to ensure content surfaces natively within the algorithm. This approach has fueled the rise of digital-native phenomena like Skibidi Toilet, one of the brands Levine at Lightboat Media has worked on since starting his own shop after many years at Disney and then at Moonbug Entertainment.
For many of the execs I spoke to, modernizing heritage brands like Pocoyo, Maya the Bee, and Strawberry Shortcake is a strategic mandate. Dray’s approach to Pocoyo and Maya the Bee focuses on “supercharging” established IPs by modernizing production models. WildBrain has created a raft of new digital-first content for Strawberry Shortcake. Mbuhaleni at VIEWED is working with a range of clients to monetize their back catalogs on YouTube, doing a deep dive into each property to understand where it sits.
Shields at Acamar Films rejects the “dopamine sugar” model for much of the content driving engagement on YouTube. He advocates for prioritizing public value and narrative-driven content. It’s a strategy that has worked for the preschool hit Bing on YouTube, and the company has now established a dedicated YouTube channel just for public-service content. The Tulipop preschool brand is also seeing significant YouTube traction while also expanding its reach across broadcast, AVOD, and SVOD, Árnadóttir explained.
Indeed, in a fragmented market, content must follow the child across devices–and into their everyday lives. This “always-on” reality requires a 360-degree vision at the outset, Cookbook Media’s Claudia Scott-Hansen and Rob Bencal said. AI can be your friend in this process, Levine noted, helping to adapt your content for TikTok or YouTube Shorts easily. Acamar Films has used AI-compiling pipelines to reduce the cost and time required to create YouTube assets. Animaj’s “Sketch to Motion” tool allows artists to turn sketches into rendered scenes.
As macro trends and consolidation reshape the conglomerates, it’s the indie producers and distributors that remain the heartbeat of the kids’ business, and they’re all using “lean and mean” strategies to drive innovation. Árnadóttir referenced producer creativity. Cookbook Media functions as a turnkey business development arm for creators who lack internal resources. Mbuhaleni and Lockhart are also benefiting from being indie specialists, being in the “engine room” where the YouTube magic happens as content is optimized for engagement. Levine suggests that the next frontier for independent animation is the direct monetization of fandom. This includes tapping into Patreons, educational courses, and ebooks. Private investment has been paramount to Tulipop Studios, Árnadóttir said, empowering the company she co-founded with Signý Kolbeinsdóttir to expand the brand while keeping the principles on which it was created front and center.
As for what else is next, AI is reshaping animation production models, and gaming represents a new frontier for IP development.
See our first batch of Gen A to Z conversations here. We’ll be back with another round in April!
