Meet the Commissioners – New Directions

Posted on: Friday 02 July 2010 8:40am

A mix of commissioners and advisors from a range of territories and outlets.

Moderator: Anna-Lisa Jenaer, Writer and Consultant, Freelance

Speakers:

Siwan Jobbins, Senior Producer, Dinamo Productions & CBBC

Gráinne McNamara, Head of International Development, Telegael

Vicky Schroderus, Children’s Acquisition Executive , Y.L.E.

Finland’s YLE offers has a market share of 45% (2-3 year old) and 19% (7-12 year olds). YLE 2 is the main children’s channel. YLE also offers an internet service and a catch-up service which is used by children a lot. 700,000 children between 2-12 years old live in Finland. They tend to watch TV for just one hour but they use the internet a lot with 93% of all households having broadband internet.

YLE is looking for compelling animated stories for 2-12 year olds, it can be anything between 1-24 minutes. Life-action is produced in-house. They also look for unique online games, YLE.fi website is a very important tool to reach children in Finland. YLE buys a lot of UK content, because of the good story telling. Vicky stated that cultural differences don’t play a big role in pre-school television.

Gráinne McNamara, developer at Telegael, Irish post production company and brand creator, focuses on international markets. For UK producers it is very interesting to come to Ireland because of the many tax break incentives and funding schemes. Irish funds could help gap-finance up to 25% of the budget. Most children’s programmes will qualify for the schemes. Telegael is looking for live action shows or combined live action/animation. Telegael has strong relationship with German broadcasters, producing a live action series for Super RTL right now. But the reasons to go to Ireland aren’t purely financial. According to Grainne, the country has a strong creative pool that is particularly talented in animation.

In Wales, several film funding schemes are available for high profile productions with international potential. State funds and grants support productions with the caveat that it must be spent in Wales.

Siwan Jobbins introduced the recently launched website My Toons (cbbc/mytoons). The idea of the website is to give new animators and new production companies the chance to showcase their programmes. My Toons is acquiring animation from all over the world with a focus on the UK. 5 short animations are put on the website every week, and will be available in the archive for three months. My Toons is looking for all styles of animation which run from 30 secs to 5 mins. Check it out on the CBBC website.