Exclusive: Viaplay’s Stephen Mowbray details Nordic streamer’s content wishlist

Karma & Jonar

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, Stephen Mowbray, Viaplay Group’s head of series & kids, reveals the company’s current focus on familiar animated IP and live-action comedy, and expansion of its kids reality offering.

Stephen Mowbray

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

We’re always open to pitches and partnerships that can expand Viaplay’s content offering for younger viewers. It helps if there’s a script and pilot episode already in place, but it’s not essential.

At the moment, we have an extra eye open for animated series based on well-known brands and live-action comedies for seven-year-olds and up. Our guiding light is characters with whom kids can identify, preferably with an educational angle.

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

This autumn, our latest kids Viaplay Original Karma & Jonar will premiere. It’s an eight-part fantasy series, and what makes it especially interesting is how it combines a story and characters from a bestselling series of Swedish books with state-of-the-art 3D animation technology from Viaplay Studios.

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

We’re particularly focused on strong and recognisable brands. We’ve often seen that a series that does very well in another territory can perform strongly in the Nordics, too.

At the same time, we want to find an attractive balance between new shows and classics. In all cases, we want to offer a positive message to all kids, and exciting, fun and educational storylines. It’s even better if they’re enjoyable for the parents as well.

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

In general, series for the youngest viewers are doing very well, especially where there is a range of characters where everyone can find someone to identify with. For the older kids, we see a positive viewing trend for comedy series, both animated and live-action.

Madagascar: A Little Wild

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

Almost all new series work with diversity and inclusion, and that is really cool. There’s someone to identify with – characters from all over the world, boys and girls, different backgrounds, skills and interests, with the subtle background message that we’re better together.

An increasing number of series are also written to be fun for parents to co-watch with their kids, which is an aspect of inclusion that is sometimes overlooked.

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

We’ve recently added a number of kids’ reality series and in November there will be two more to watch: Create The Escape and Backyard Blowout. We’re also very happy to add more episodes to our DreamWorks series: Madagascar: A Little Wild, The Croods: Family Tree and TrollsTopia. And during the holidays we’ll release Dodger, a great new drama series from Universal International Studios for the whole family, based on the famous Charles Dickens book Oliver Twist.