"Listening to children is the most important thing," says Lucy Murphy, Sky's first head of kids' content. It's a lesson she learned during her time as a playworker in a children's hospital and most recently applied while overseeing the creation of the Sky Kids app.
“Every two weeks we sat down with a group of children. And they don’t hold back,” says Murphy of the research phase. “I don’t think you can produce anything for children without letting them have a voice.”
The newly launched Sky Kids app, available to Sky customers who have signed up to either its Variety bundle or Sky Q, features thousands of episodes of popular kids' shows for pre-schools to nine-year-olds. These include Nick Jr's Paw Patrol, Boomerang's Scooby Doo, CBeebies's Octonauts and Cartoon Network's Adventure Time.
Although Sky already had kids’ programming available “within the adult framework” of its Sky Go app, the new child-friendly app is Sky’s biggest recognition to date of the need to recruit the very youngest of viewers, and to do so in the only television environment they have ever known: on-demand.
Sky has also decided to get involved for the first time in the production of kids' programmes, starting with the latest iteration of Morph, the clay stop-motion animation character made famous by the late Tony Hart on his BBC series Take Hart. The Bristol-based Oscar-winning company Aardman Animation, which first created and produced Morph for the BBC in 1977, will now make exclusive new episodes for Sky.
New generation
According to Aardman’s Alix Wiseman, Morph is “very dear to our hearts” and it is hoped that he and his friend Chas will “entertain a brand new generation of viewers on this platform”.
The episodes, which will be added to the app in the autumn, will be accompanied by live action “how to” films that show children how to make their own animations.
Sky says it is in talks with other kids' television producers, while it also plans to produce kids' versions of Sky shows like Duck Quacks Don't Echo and Big Cats: An Amazing Animal Family.
There is nothing in the pipeline from Ireland's animation cluster – yet. But as a former producer, script editor and development executive, Murphy has already crossed paths with the sector here, working with Brown Bag Films on Bing Bunny, a hit CBeebies show on which she was executive producer. Her CV also includes Horrid Henry and The Gruffalo.
On-demand consumption of television – and other media – on tablet devices is now the norm for a generation of children, who clearly can’t remember life without it, says Murphy. Younger children can become frustrated by traditional linear television, not understanding why they can’t control it in the same way that they can on-demand platforms.
Educational
Sky’s research suggests that although 70 per cent of parents think that television in moderation is entertaining and educational, almost 60 per cent with children aged three to 12 are worried about the types of programmes they are watching. This finding made features such as age-appropriate filtering a development priority for Sky.
The app, which its in-house team created in conjunction with Ustwo, the digital product studio company behind popular mobile game Monument Valley, features child-friendly play buttons, cartoon "Sky Buddy" avatars and lots of soft-edged, curved design.
Different viewing profiles can be set up for different children within the same household, while a “sleep mode” setting, which will give parents the ability to limit viewing time, will be added later this year.
Murphy, who joined Sky in November 2015, isn’t allowed to say how much Sky will be spending on its original kids’ productions, but the budget is unlikely to be skimpy. “We always do things properly,” she says.
Ask anyone involved in making television for children: they are the harshest of critics. Or, as Murphy puts it, “quality is so important”.
