TV specials: Steady business in a shaky kids entertainment market

While competition for kids slots is always fierce, the balance of power tends to shift in the production community's favor for major holidays. Broadcasters typically fall into repeat patterns with their year-long programming around Christmas, Easter and Halloween, and end up actively seeking specials to spike ratings and audience levels - which translates into a solid annual business for entertainment companies with healthy holiday programming portfolios.

And with new independent outfits strategizing for market survival (see "The indie influx," page 52), the focus on specials has intensified. To wit: With sale and leaseback financing (a tax break used to fund original productions) nixed on series production in the U.K. last April, Brit producers are looking to theatrical productions and specials, for which such funding is still available.

London-based indie studio BA20 is breaking into specials with the half-hour family concept Jack Frost, based on a book by children's author David Melling that will be published this November. The 2-D special follows the story of a little boy whose arrival in an enchanted forest opens the supernatural gates to goblins that have long coveted the forest's magic. It's up to the boy - dubbed Jack Frost because everything he touches freezes - to save the day. At press time, BA20 founder Alastair Swinnerton had three financing options for Jack Frost: giving it over to a broadcaster, going the U.K./France/Canada co-pro route, or taking it theatrical and applying for Film Council funding. Whichever way it shakes out, Swinnerton expects production on the special (budgeted at US$1.5 million) to begin later this year for delivery in 2004, and he recently signed executive producer John Coates (The Snowman) and U.K. studio Stardust to the project.

Jack Frost's key selling point is that it isn't thematically tied to a holiday. "One of the drawbacks to holiday-specific programming is that it really limits our scheduling flexibility," notes Terry Kalagian, VP of programming for Cartoon Network in the U.S. For less consumer-driven holidays such as Thanksgiving, "if you can pull together [regular] episodes that have to do with food and getting together, you can create an event, which makes more sense than acquiring or producing a special to fit that holiday."

ABC Kids employs a similar strategy for Down Under holidays such as Australia Day and the Queen's Birthday. "In 2002, we programmed a 'Royal Rumble' festival on the Queen's Birthday with shows about kings and queens," says ABC Kids programmer Deirdre Brennan. What's more, one of Brennan's favorite ABC-aired specials of 2002 was Hamilton Mattress. "One-off specials work really well for us and can be used throughout the calendar year," she says.

For some broadcasters, scheduling generic specials around specific holidays is a matter of market supply. "We don't have the tradition the U.S. has with Halloween, but it is becoming more important in Germany," says Super RTL acquisitions and co-productions executive Oliver Schablitski. "We try to find programs for it, but get the feeling there isn't much out there."

Even in the U.S., where Halloween is the number-two holiday in terms of consumer spending, "there's not much attention paid to it on TV," says Bob Higgins, Classic Media's senior VP of production and creative. Maureen Smith, a partner at L.A.-based TLC Entertainment, offers an explanation: "Halloween is really tricky - it's hard to do it and be family. When you think about the theatrical releases around Halloween, they're mostly slasher films."

Going forward, Halloween specials will be a focus for both companies. Of the four specials TLC currently has in active development, one is for Halloween. At press time, Classic Media was awaiting a broadcast offer for a new half-hour special focused on Casper the Friendly Ghost and a host of other Harvey characters.

Producers with completed Halloween specials in their distribution goody bags may be in for a treat in Australia. "We will be exploring more opportunities for holiday-based programming events in 2003/2004," says ABC Kids' Brennan. "While Easter and Christmas are traditionally important, we will also consider other calendar events such as Halloween."

Easter is another holiday for which broadcasters often air generic specials. In the U.K., "Easter tends to be more about spring specials," says former HIT senior VP of international television and home entertainment John Morris. "HIT releases them around Easter because many people are on holiday - they get out to retail, and broadcasters have a holiday schedule." The company is offering a Bob the Builder special this Easter - tentatively titled The Knights of Can-A-Lot - that finds Bob having to reconstruct a castle ruin.

In the U.S., Easter doesn't have the programming thrust it once did. "Years ago, there was a lot of animation around Q2 to try to bring in retail dollars," says Terry Botwick, president of Lombard, Illinois-based Big Idea Productions. "That kind of faded away, but broadcasters may be looking at that time of year again to bring fresh dollars into the network during a repeat cycle." That's what Botwick and Big Idea are banking on as they wrap production on a new VeggieTales musical special entitled An Easter Carol for delivery next spring.

Of course, Christmas remains the one holiday around which competition escalates for both established classics and new programming that has the potential to become a channel signature. U.S. network CBS, which has aired Rankin/Bass classics such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and Frosty Returns for years, acquired BBC stop-motion specials Robbie the Reindeer in Hooves of Fire and its sequel Legend of the Lost Tribe for Christmas 2002. To make the Brit imports more palatable for potential U.S. buyers, BBC re-voiced them using celebrity talent including Ben Stiller (as Robbie), Britney Spears and James Woods.