WarnerMedia APAC cuts across a wide range of kids—more than one billion kids live in the Asia-Pacific region. The media conglom pulls in more than 100 million kids across its three channels in the region (Cartoon Network, Boomerang and the India-specific Pogo), so for Leslie Lee, VP Kids Asia Pacific, defining the "WarnerMedia" audience is a bit challenging.
While it speaks to kids six to 12 (Cartoon Network and Pogo) and six to nine (Boomerang), Lee recognizes very regional differences in taste make programming broadly a challenge.
Kids in Australia or Singapore, for example, connect well with globally minded, Western-centric fare, he told Kidscreen Summit audiences. In comparison, kids in India, Japan and Korea—where local folklore, K-pop and Anime respectively reign supreme—tastes tend to veer towards hyper-local pop culture.
While each market has its own programming strategy, and local buying requirements and quotas do influence how much original content is made or acquired in each country, Lee does want to take the opportunity to build out APAC-led stories that can travel across the region, and even globally.
To achieve this goal, he’s looking for content that has humor and comedy, shows that are driven by characters who are engaging and compelling, and with whom kids can identify in any language.
For comedy, Lee points to strong visual, often silent, comedies—a la Tom & Jerry. “That works really well for us because you don’t need a common language [to enjoy it,]” he says.
But there are universal kid experiences that can make a character compelling, no matter the local market. He points to recent original Mechamato from Malaysian studio Monsta, which takes place in an unnamed Southeast Asian city. The characters and location are recognizably Southeast Asian, but the main character’s “everyday” quality (he goes to school, has fights with friends, etc.) make him very relatable outside the region.
Lee is also on the hunt for shows that respect regional sensibilities. Examples of slight Asian nuances could be characters taking off their shoes when they walk into a living room, or families who live in multi-generational households (a goldmine for both comedy and heart, he adds.)
Specific genres he’s looking for include more chase comedies, horror comedies steeped in folklore and mythology, and sci-fi, with an element of wish-fulfillment baked in. "Slice-of-life physical comedies, light horror and supernatural comedies matched with cute and appealing character designs are top of our wish list," says Lee.
Format-wise, the regular 11- or 22-minute show still appeals, though as kids increasingly turn to SVOD platforms, Lee is far more open to experimentation with formats than he might have been in the past.
COVID-19 also has changed kids viewing habits—early in the pandemic, they turned to bite-sized content in the early days of stay-at-home orders, before shifting to more binge-worthy serialized shows. Lee suspects we’ll continue to see some of these trends—watch bite sized content between classes and enjoy bingeing serialized stories while on school break—stick around. Let the story drive the format, he says.
Finally on pitching he strongly recommends that producers think through that character journey—how does the story end, he asks himself when examining a pitch, and suggests that producers and creators be able to answer it, too.
Team
Carlene Tan Director of Original Production and Development, Kids
Hoyoung Jung Director of Acquisitions and Co-Productions
Demographic
Cartoon Network and Pogo - six to 14 with six to 12 as core audience
Boomerang - six to nine
