Christopher Skala forms YouTube content company

Former Hit Entertainment and Guinness World of Records executive Christopher Skala has created a new YouTube-focused kids content company, TaDaKids.

Skala’s venture launched last month with backing from private equity firm Sandbox Partners. Writing about the new business in the latest issue of TBI Kids, Skala said TaDaKids will be a new kind of prodco, eschewing traditional kids content financing models and making economically efficient programmes for YouTube channels.

TaDaKids will roll out a nine-strong suite of YouTube kids channels at the start of 2016 and a further 21 over the next 18 months.

They will be programmed with animation and live-action content and several of the first wave of channels will come from Justin Fletcher, the star of popular series Justin’s House and Mr Tumble, which play on the CBeebies channel in the UK.

The TadaKids founder says that while in the traditional TV world content costs are several hundreds of dollars per minute, his prodco will make some shows for US$75 per minute, and without sacrificing quality.

“This is achievable not by eschewing so-called production values,” said Skala. “It’s achievable by a radically different approach to creativity and what constitutes content.”

He added that the new prodco will learn from the successful YouTube channels out there and “create a systematic process in order to prove a viable, alternative IP-creation funding model that can reach an audience directly, without the traditional struggles associated with accommodating broadcasters, brand managers, toy companies and distributors”.

Skala was senior VP, programming and TV sales at Guiness World Records until end-2013. Prior to that he was senior VP, programming and production, at Hit Entertainment. He has also been a producer, working for Tiger Aspect among others.

Christopher Skala writes about TaDaKids in an article in the latest issue of TBI Kids. An online version can be read here