The 30th MipJunior, the international kids content market, opened Saturday with the presentation Binge Watching Session: Kids Audience Successes Around the Globe.
Presented by industry analyst Avril Blondelot, the head of content insight Paris-based Global Audience & Content Evolution (Glance), the colorful overview presented the latest hits for kids and tipped off the audience on upcoming shows to track.
“The trend towards reboots isn’t going away anywhere soon,” she toldPvNewin Cannes, citing the global success of the reboot of 80s’ hit “The Smurfs.”
Reboots like “Moominvalley,” “Rugrats,” “Animaniacs” and the upcoming “Teletubbies”were all cited as key examples in the trend.
“Animaniacs” resurfaced on Hulu in 2020, 27 years after it was first seen. Netflix will debut its “Teletubbies” reboot this fall. Tove Jansson’s “Moomin” characters were resurrected in 2019.
Another trend is “spin offs and more spin offs.”Titles Blondelot presented for this popular category included “Madagascar: A Little Wild,” “Batwheels” and the upcoming “Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Pups.”
“We are seeing younger character spin offs,” she said.
Formats for kids marks another popular trend with Blondelot noting series like Dutch show “Last Family Standing,” a reality survival show from Skyhigh TV.
“Britain’s Best Young Artist” from BBC Children and the YouTube hit “The Big Tiny Food Face Off” from B17 Entertainment were some of the other formats highlighted.
“The main overall format trend is find a kids’ version,” she said.
Another trend: Presenting a way into older times for younger viewers. One of the shows doing this most successfully include the program “When I Was Your Age” from Monello Productions. It was the number three most-watched series in the age bracket 4-14 in France.
With over 9.2 million views, another hit she cited was the YouTubeKids series “Corpse Talk” from Tiger Aspect Kids and Family.
“You see you can infuse elements from history and magic which brings kids back to their past and creates an adventure. Some shows by contrast put kids in a future world,” she says.
Relatable science, nature, and fantasy and adventure remain solid categories for kids’ success stories.
Some of the hits mentioned in these categories include the UK’s “Lovely Little Farm,” and France’s “Edmund & Lucy,” while the French kids show “Welcome to Permacity,” from Millimages, is one to look out for, she says.
“Nature has worked for many years because kids have a genuine interest in nature,” she says. “One of the best shows this year in Germany is ‘Anna Auf dem Bauenhof’.”
Girls entertainment now rolls off better role models and a greater diversity, Blondelot noted. Examples are “Marvel’s Moongirl and Evil Dinosaur,” about a 13-year-old girl super-genius, for The Walt Disney Company, and Mondo TV’s “Annie and Carola.”
“There are new role models for kids. There have been many attempts in the past to create new role models, picturing girl mathematicians for example. Now girls can even be clumsy,” Blondelot concluded.
