Exclusive: WildBrain’s Katie Wilson talks up co-viewing & shortform demands

Summer Memories

As the industry descends upon Cannes once again for MIPJR & MIPCOM, TBI talks to leading kids commissioners to find out what they’re looking for in terms of originals and acquisitions and what they’ve already got coming up.

Here, Katie Wilson, VP of channels & global acquisitions at WildBrain Television, shares her company’s open pitching policy, the current push for co-viewing content and upcoming short-form programming.

Kate Wilson

What’s on your commissioning wishlist at the moment? Are you open to pitches?

Over the last couple of years, we’ve been all about our preschool offering and developing the Family Jr. slate and have invested in some fantastic content along the way. We’re now shifting focus back to Family Channel, which is our flagship channel and home of primetime programming that really resonates with our audience of 6–11-year-olds, and also encourages shared viewing experiences among the whole family.

In terms of our current wishlist, we’re always on the lookout for engaging animation and live-action content that will work well in primetime slots. Specifically, we continue to be on the hunt for laugh-out-loud, animated comedies for the whole family.

We believe that you don’t know what’s out there, until you know what’s out there, and as a result, we take unsolicited pitches. We’d encourage anyone who is looking to pitch us to have a solid understanding of our audience and what WildBrain is about before submitting a project. Pitches that are on-brand with the channel and align with our current content needs will stand out and tend to rise to the top of the pile.

We have a wonderful submission system that sits at the heart of the WildBrain Content group which ensures that all projects are reviewed by the relevant teams, allowing us the opportunity to respond more fully. Projects are pitched to us from inside and outside the company through emails, meetings or referrals. Over the last couple of years in particular, we’ve had so many amazing pitches and creators coming to the table.

Slugterra: Ascension

What upcoming shows are you most looking forward to? What is it about those projects that excites you?

I’m really excited about an upcoming series we commissioned for Family Channel called Summer Memories (25 x 30-minutes), it’s a brand-new, quirky 2D-animated series for kids aged 6-12 years, centred on the time-and-space-bending adventures of best friends Jason and Ronnie. The series is created by Adam Yaniv (Night At The Museum, Alvinnn!!! And The Chipmunks) and produced by A&N Productions, Aircraft Pictures and Yeti Farm Creative. It’s really the first of its kind for Family Channel and the series transcends time, space and memory – the good and the bad – as it chronicles Jason and Ronnie’s sweet, fun-filled relationship. As part of our current commissioning strategy, we’re looking for similar shows that could sit alongside Summer Memories.

On the live-action side, we’re really looking forward to Life With Luca, a brand new 90-minute movie spin-off from Life With Derek, which is the perfect addition to our classic library of the Life With Derek series. The movie sees Michael Seater (Derek) and Ashley Leggat (Casey) reprise their roles, now as 35-year-old parents, and we’re excited to introduce this chapter of the beloved Canadian story to new and existing fans.

Family Channel is also working on new short-form content for our action-adventure series Slugterra for the first time in six years! The shorts, titled Slugterra: Ascension, premiered exclusively on our linear network this September, and then our incredible fans around the world will be able to find it on WildBrain Spark’s Slugterra YouTube channels.

Life With Luca

What is your acquisitions strategy? What are you looking for from acquired kids content?

When it comes to finding great projects for our content pipeline, we’re always looking for partnerships and projects to enhance our roster. We have an extraordinary in-house development team, and we will be meeting with creators and producers at MIPCOM this year to bring more shows and partnership opportunities into the WildBrain world.

Are there any kids shows doing particularly well for WildBrain? Are you seeing any trends among the content that young audiences are watching?

We’ve started rolling out our five new CG Caillou specials which provide perfect occasions for preschool-friendly event viewing throughout the year: Christmas, Halloween, Celebration of Family, Summer Vacation and even tackling the important topic of bullying. We’re going to have a whole array of Caillou celebrations around the specials throughout the year on Family Jr.

Over the years, Caillou has embarked on a really exciting journey – the show started out on the linear channel, then was reinvigorated with new digital-first content created by WildBrain Spark and will be further expanded as we’ve partnered with NBCUniversal’s streaming platform, Peacock, to produce new episodes of the beloved series. Given Caillou’s enduring relevance, the show’s existing content library of 234 classic 2D episodes also continues to perform well among preschool audiences, and we can’t wait to introduce the all-new CG series.

Animation is still key for a younger kids’ audience, and we continue to see shows, such as Summer Memories, The Deep, Smurfs and Spirit Riding Free, performing well among this demographic. Among preschool audiences in particular, it’s all about bridge content for us, with shows including Curious George, Mighty Mike, Grizzy and The Lemmings and LEGO Ninjago being key drivers on Family Jr. channel.

It’s also really fantastic to see the enduring popularity of the classic TV shows for multi-generation audiences , such as Family Matters and Life With Derek, for which Family Channel is the exclusive linear home and has established a strong audience across kids and adults.

Caillou

Where do you think the most exciting things are happening in kids’ content right now?

The kids’ content space is a dynamic and exciting place to be in right now. We’re seeing kids consuming more content than ever, and they’re now able to find content in so many different places. Our ethos is about being where kids are. What I’m really excited about is having the opportunity to reach kids with amazing content and – as a company – crafting strategies to make sure we’re across all the key entry points into content for them. In addition to engaging with families on our linear networks, we are leaning into the opportunity to increasingly connect with audiences directly through AVOD and FAST platforms.

As part of this, we’re looking to work with producers and creators in new ways – for example, looking at non-traditional durations and formats or digital-first series, such as with Slugterra. As part of our wider 360 approach at WildBrain, we’re committed to making sure all the amazing content that we’re commissioning and producing as a company is finding kids and families across the world. 

Strawberry Shortcake: Berry In The Big City

What does the rest of 2022 have in store for WildBrain?

For the rest of the year, we’ll be rolling out even more great content for our audiences, and this will continue into 2023. For example, we’ll be launching the rest of the brilliant new Caillou CG seasonal specials, and Life With Luca will be hitting our screens in early 2023. For WildBrain’s own beloved IP, Strawberry Shortcake, we’ll also be debuting the second season of the new 2D-animated Berry In The Big City series on Family Jr. on October 11, which is also International Day of the Girl.

We’re really looking forward to returning to MIPCOM and MIP Junior this year and will have a full team in attendance at the market.