This episode of the Kids Media Club Podcast is part of a sponsored series produced in partnership with WildBrain Media Solutions. We get together with Kate Smith, EVP of Audience Engagement at WildBrain to talk about what constitutes a TV Network in 2026.

Within the industry the term "distribution" has evolved. Kate opens by sharing how WildBrain has pioneered its own Network, driven by TV viewing insights. The company has quietly become one of the dominant operators in kids' FAST channels and on YouTube, holding over 50% of all kids and family channels across major FAST platforms in the US and operating 800 YouTube channels.

We explore how YouTube and FAST serve different but complementary functions — YouTube as a discovery engine, FAST as a destination for fans who already know what they want — and why legacy IP with multigenerational appeal continues to drive the strongest long-form viewing numbers.

1. https://bit.ly/WBMSCapabilities

We really appreciate their support and sponsorship in keeping the work we do accessible for the industry.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Kids Media Club Podcast.

I'm Andy Williams.

Welcome to.

And I'm Jo Redfern.

And I'm Emily Horgan.

And I'm very pleased to introduce Kate Smith, EVP of audience engagement at WildBrain.

How are you doing, Kate?

I'm very well, thank you.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Listen, it's great to be chatting.

It's kind of funny because I think about WildBrain, I think about, you know, a company that's in distribution, a company that's in licensing.

But what we wanted to talk about today is that you're actually overseeing, like, a whole TV network there, right?

Yes, that's a good starting point.

So I think, as I see wildbrain today, and we're a kids and family franchise business, really, and we believe that sort of great franchises are built through a combination of content, of brilliant storytelling, of audience engagement, and then global licensing of those brands into consumer products and experiences.

And so that's how we're set up.

That's the kind of structure of the company.

And we're seeing lots of success, obviously, for our own brands like Strawberry Shortcake, Teletubbies, and then we work with strategic kind of third parties as well for all the different services that we offer.

So, yeah, that's wild.

We're in today.

Yeah, it's so funny because I know in prepping for the session, so I would always say I'm a programmer.

I'm a programmer by trade.

Back in the days of Linear Disney, Disney xd, Disney Junior, Jetix, the wrestling channel.

Very, very, very long ago.

And when we've been prepping for the session, the kinds of things that you and your teams are overseeing about programing and audience development sound so aligned.

You're head of programming.

Right.

That's like, that's, you know, the function that your role is fulfilling right now.

Yeah, it's such an interesting sort of like, roundabout, isn't it, that the audience, what we call audience engagement is the kind of.

Is the group that we consciously brought together that connect with audiences.

So taking the content out, audiences.

And obviously that's changed so dramatically.

You know, we talk about fragmentation, but in the old days, it was sort of.

It was grouped under different teams and we thought that there was a really strong reason to put kind of pull that together.

So you really think about where that content's reaching, reaching kids and families in different places.

So, yeah, I think that the growth area that we really see is the Digital distribution, right?

YouTube, fast.

And I think it's kind of evolved recently that we've been starting to say, well, we have a network.

We are the kids TV network of today.

We have such wide distribution and connection with audiences on fast channels and through the hundreds of YouTube channels that we have, that this acts like a kind of TV network today.

And it's largely being watched on, as I said, on connected tv.

So when we talk about kids tv, that's how they see it.

And I mean, it's interesting, as you said, kind of things tend to go full circle, but they don't look exactly like they were before.

So when you talk about this kind of YouTube and fast network and it is the TV network of today, what does that mean to you?

How does that manifest with that viewing that you mentioned through connected TV and those other touch points?

So we're talking about channels, we always talk about channels, but YouTube has channels, fast has channels.

And that the experience on a fast channel is akin to TV because it's curated.

It's kind of sequential programming of episodes.

And then I guess the critical thing that's always been the case with TV channels is an advertising component, right?

That's how you monetize that content and give that experience to the audience.

So, as I said, that's what we're doing today.

We have a flow of content that we program across channels.

We develop an audience, a relationship with audience, and then we have a media solutions team that goes out and makes the case for advertisers who want to reach families and parents to come and place their ads with us.

That trust, I feel, of a TV channel is there, you know what I mean?

And I think that it's kind of like I've worked in YouTube for a long time now.

At one stage it was like, is it marketing?

You know, I've always, you know, from the get go, felt that it was.

It's a content platform.

It's.

It's something that you program like you would program a TV channel.

And I think that's where it's landed today, right?

Like it's, you know, regular, you know, regular slot, you know, linear slot is not the same thing, but like regular content drops.

Building an audience who trusts you to post things that they're going to like.

Right.

And that you're into it too.

So I think it's that trust that really builds that lean back experience that audiences trust you to spend time with you rather than it's something transient or swipeable.

And I think you see that definitely in fasting.

Fast is such a great opportunity for that.

But also YouTube is the home of, is a home of long form.

Now.

I don't think anybody's disputing that anymore, are they?

No, exactly.

And we see that by the way.

We see that so broadly across the network of channels that we, that we operate that average view durations are pretty long.

And also if you're in a position as a, as a kids IP owner with a kind of quite a deep library of long form made originally for TV episodes, then kids can press an episode and watch 20 minutes worth or three 20 minutes worth.

And so, and you know, we talk, you guys talk a lot about sort of fandom and stuff that's, that's really good as an experience.

If you really like a certain brand that you can, you can find the, you know, the full episodes and kind of go deeper with one channel.

And equally YouTube is lots of things to everyone.

It's short form, you know, and I'm sure we'll talk about later.

But they're kind of the different lengths of content.

You can use lots of different lengths of content.

But it's just we're seeing a lot of success with sort of TV like content on the YouTube platform.

And how does that content, how does your approach differ From Fast to YouTube in terms of that content?

Is there any distinction between that or do you approach it the same way?

It really depends on the brand, what the library you have to work with is.

I think something like Strawberry Shortcake is really fascinating because it, it's obviously been around for years and years and there's lots of different series.

So we have quite a kind of.

We call it the World of Strawberry Shortcake.

We have lots of different episodes that we can program and sort of TV movies and everything.

Right.

So if you, you know, other.

There are other people that they've.

Their rights are locked up very much more with kind of broadcast deals and, or SVOD deals.

And so they usually they have to use YouTube by necessity of shorter clips within their promotional rights.

But YouTube prioritizes watch time.

So you really do need as much of a engagement, longer engagement to kind of to get the channel sort of growing and then it being shown the.

More people do you think of YouTube and fast as complementary in the sense that, you know, YouTube can be a great top of funnel discovery tool.

But as you pointed out, you speak about fandom and actually FAST can allow you to go deeper and really indulge at fandom with your favorite brand or IP on that.

So is it a slightly different kind of job that each one does?

Yeah, I think so, yes.

I mean because of the way YouTube works, you can discover things much more easily based on interest.

You know, you start with one thing and then it's much more likely to present you with other suggestions, suggestions and recommendations that could be next to what you like.

FAST doesn't operate in that way right now.

It's curated.

You have a selection of options when you open the tv.

I think right now the single IP channels that or single kind of brand channels that people are jumping into, like Pokemon for example.

It probably does rely on you knowing that show in the first place or being interested in it and then as you say, being a fan already and then kind of going deeper.

But I think the interesting thing with FAST and all the different services that are now growing and growing, Roku, Samsung, Pluto, et cetera, is it does.

There's a form of discovery there, I think in that I don't know if you've recently you turn your TV on and suddenly there's a whole bunch of entertainment choices presented to you in the same way that Netflix does.

Right.

They kind of home screen.

So I recently have been served ads for strawberry or cake and Pokemon on the front of Samsung tv.

So I think it won't work for everybody right now.

But because we're in an interesting position that we have most a large share of the kids channels within these environments, that we're kind of fortunate that people probably are discovering our channels through these platforms.

But as you say, they're different kind of operating systems and slightly different experiences.

Tell us a bit about that share that you mentioned.

What kind of scale and volume are you talking about here with Wild Brain channels?

So we were quite taken aback actually last year when we started looking at the numbers because we have been a kind of forerunner in kids fast and we work with these platforms quite early on on some of the major services or actually across all of them now in the US we have 50 plus percent of all the kids and family channels on these fast platforms.

Yeah, it's interesting and why we were able to do that.

Wild Brain's always been quite good at kind of looking at what's happening and kind of trialing things and looking ahead and the luxury of having A large catalogue, as I said, with non exclusive rights on some shows meant that we could, we could put stuff up and test.

And it hasn't come overnight, it's grown.

But we're now in a really fortunate and a unique position to have all of that viewership across lots of different brands which as you think about media solutions and being able to then sell that to advertisers is what you need.

Because you need the scale, the breadth and the depth of kind of different types of audiences.

I'd love to know different types of audiences because you've talked about Strawberry Shortcake and you've talked about Pokemon.

Like what are you seeing the difference between preschool and six plus?

Because they're really different in my experience anyway, they're really different types of audiences to get hold of.

The numbers across the board are just sizable.

And fast, again, what have we released recently?

Caillou has kind of, we've been launched in the last year.

Um, that is the gift that carries on giving kids love Caillou.

It's huge on YouTube and it's like rapidly taken off on fast.

I think it's just you're providing again, it's like, are you providing a valuable service and if parents and kids can find a channel that looks like something that.

Or a show that they like and you know, they know the parents are happy with it and then it's on a big screen and it's.

And it's back to back episodes.

So you're not kind of going off and finding other things.

But I don't think there's been a distinction by the way.

I think the preschool audiences, obviously there's volume, but then the six pluses, you're getting into an interesting audience who are much more kind of getting.

Finding their interests and they're fascinating six year olds so they're choosing their things that they like and there's peer influences in there.

They're reading, they're much more kind of alert to kind of choosing things.

So Pokemon has been performing fantastically.

Yeah, that's really interesting.

When you were talking about Caillou and the fact that it was big on YouTube and then was really taking off on fast, is that an example of the kind of complementary ecosystem of YouTube and fast that you can get some kind of valuable research from YouTube and then that can inform the strategy for fast.

Does it work like that?

I think the programming is ever so slightly different, but then absolutely, there are loads of great insights on YouTube that you could take and think about.

Caillou is a good example Kids love Caillou, going swimming and lots of sort of more kind of outdoorsy activities.

So the other great thing about.

Come back to your point about marketing and how you can think of YouTube as marketing and long form.

We think about our franchise plan across the year and what's going on with Teletubbies at key moments, like, do we have kind of themed months or a franchise theme for the year, and then we can kind of run that through some of the programming and the promotion that we're doing on the channel so that in that sense they're really complementary.

So we could have a spring weekend with Strawberry Shortcake or Baking Month or something.

And we're kind of quite actively curating that and choosing the programming around that.

It's kind of about being as obsessed with your IP as your audience is, right?

Like, it's about being like, into all the details, knowing the DNA of the IP to be like, yes, Strawberry Shortcake should of course, do a baking month and it should be around.

Maybe it should even be around Bake off, right?

And, like, who knows, right?

It's trying to, like, tie it in, but also, like, make the programming as special for the audience as it is for.

As it, you know, as it can be.

No, I think that makes a lot of sense.

And then, yeah, so the viewing on YouTube, the TV level, viewing on YouTube, obviously we've seen the US Nielsen stats come in.

You know, they've been growing over the past, I want to say two years, but I feel like it's three years since, you know, YouTube stripped all the SVODs in the US from a TV perspective, what kind of TV uptake are you seeing on the IPs that you're running, Kate, from a YouTube perspective?

Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day.

Covid was the catalyst, by the way.

That was when we saw the lines crossover, when TV overtook mobile because it was at home.

It was for all the reasons we know, and it never went back.

That was the kicker.

And then I think it's taken a few years for that to kind of bed in in the same way.

And then it's now showing up in the.

The survey data.

Obviously, the.

We're looking at about 60% viewership on connected TV on YouTube, and it's been that way, by the way, for years.

So, you know, as I said, maybe.

Maybe that's why we think of ourselves as this TV network, because largely most of the viewership is coming, is coming on TVs, and you've got mobile and tablet, obviously, but it's I think the long, sorry, the high amount of TV viewership is because of the nature of our programming.

And it's not just the length.

It's to do.

The fact that it's multi generational, it's kind of nostalgic franchises.

It's probably more likely to be the kind of shows that we know from our research that kids and parents will kind of choose to watch together because there's an affection for it rather than it being something that kids have chosen themselves.

Yeah, that's something I'm seeing a load of in our Netflix data as well.

Right?

Like that.

Those shows that kind of go up the generations.

So we saw like man vs Baby on Netflix recently, which is like Rowan Atkinson core, basically.

And that did phenomenally well over the two weeks at Christmas as well.

When, like Christmas viewing is so full of competition, you know, we see it with all those legacy ip like Pokemon.

Spongebob is another one where that, like, you know, I feel like kids TV is the new comfort TV for, you know, Gen Z and Millennials as well.

Right.

Like, and then obviously parents are bringing their kids into it.

You know, it's, it's, it's like the sitcom.

It's like what we, like what we would have come for TV watched as sitcoms like Friends or even like something like the Golden Girls.

It's now spongebob, different type of golden entity.

But you know what?

It stands the test of time.

It's really rewatchable.

I think that's the other thing.

It's not just a fad, is it?

It's not just a trend.

There's something about it.

You discover it and then you're like, this is really great or funny or it makes my mum laugh as much as me.

It's kind of.

There's, it's really well made, isn't it?

So it's kind of.

Yeah.

How that plays into it, I think.

That's one of the fundamental changes in the entertainment industry now.

It's like, it used to be a pipeline, right?

Like back 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when I was working the channel, it was like, new season of this, new season of this, this new series.

New season of this new season of this, this new series.

And it's actually like the room is pretty full with IP that's still really relevant.

Obviously, not every single IP that's launched is relevant, but pillars, they're pillars like spongebob or Pepper or Strawberry Shortcake or Teletubbies, right?

Like, and if you're launching a new IP into the room to take up that oxygen.

I'm going to go with the mantra here, the analogy that I have.

But if you're going to launch a new ip, like, you need to realize that you're taking up space from these pillars that have been there in the landscape for decades.

You know, this is not to say that we don't want to see new stuff.

I mean, it's exciting, new stuff's brilliant.

But yeah, you're kind of in this day and age where it's so stuff is so accessible and brought forward in different ways that.

And if it's good and it's good quality and it stands the test of time, then, yeah, you just got to provide something different.

Yeah.

And franchise companies obviously very invested in keeping the story going.

So, you know, Peppa Pig, for example, you find reasons to kind of bring people back in.

It really highlights, doesn't it, the value of that quality storytelling.

There's a reason that these things are coming back and they're finding a new audience, whether it is Friends or Golden Girls or.

I mean, there's a reason that it comes back.

I think there's plenty of reasons that we could dig into.

But you know, that's, as you said, that kind of lean back, pure enjoyment viewing experience never really went away.

We all kind of got hooked on the shorts thing for a while, didn't we?

You know, and everybody runs towards it and thinks it's the silver bullet that's going to fix everything.

And it feels like the pendulum swing is coming back a little bit.

Not just the short thing, Jo, though, it's still.

It's the on demand thing too.

Right.

Like, I don't want to choose.

I have to make a million choices a day.

Like, choose for me.

Right.

This is true.

Yes.

We now, now we have infinite content.

We are paralyzed by the choice.

And actually in the same way that we used to, you know, you would have your.

Or your family would have a newspaper of choice.

They were all reporting the same news, but each new newspaper aggregated it and presented it in a certain way.

And it feels like we're in that stage now where we want someone to curate that experience for us in a video sense.

In fact, let's dig into that a little bit because you've got hub channels as well.

How do you think about, how do you feel about that curation, not just with your single IP channels, but you're thinking about it from a hub.

At a hub level too.

Yeah.

So on YouTube, I suppose we have three different types of channels.

We've got single IP channels in multiple languages depending on how many dubs we've got and where we choose to operate those.

So your Teletubbies 26, 27 channels something you've also got single i2p channels around library shows.

We have where again we've got kind of lots of content to be able to publish Sabrina the Witch something.

So if you love Sabrina, there is a channel for you and then we've got that.

We do that work then for strategic partners.

So we work with Spin Master, we do a channel for Lego Smurfs, we do lots of others.

And again with that everyone has sort of slightly different needs and content to work with.

But those are.

Yeah, you jump into those because you know those shows or you're a fan of them already or within the YouTube you're just getting recommended them because they're similar to the kind of stuff that you, you're watching.

And then what we call WildBrain, they're hub channels, they're named Wildbrain channels.

We have recently kind of really ramped that up and I think we're up to about 300 now.

And those are multi show channels that are programmed around sort of types of content, around interests.

And we thought about the architecture of those channels especially as we were going to scale it up to be a sort of a world of wild brain with different places and spaces that kids that recognize.

So the zoo or the haunted house or the arcade or something.

So we wanted them to have clear kind of demo and interest kind of profiles because that was really helpful for advertisers to understand.

But we didn't want to get bogged down in kind of stereotypical gender descriptions and stuff.

So yeah, that's been really successful.

We're actively kind of scaling those up and they kind of act as TV channels, right, because they're around a type and we've curated them and.

And whilst today we aren't a consumer brand, I think who knows, over time maybe people will recognize WildBrain as being a sort of an official destination or trusted provider of content within YouTube.

We haven't done that on FAST today.

It seems that for now single IP channels work much better on fast.

But who knows, we could, I wonder if we'll see within FAST things like AI will help with the discovery of kind of content within fast because at the moment you've only got so much space to put things and to kind of list things.

And so maybe if you're using different discovery tools in future you'll be able to have more in the shop that won't be featured right at the front or something, but we'll have.

That's interesting.

And do you think that those, those kind of interest hubs, are you able to use those to.

To kind of cross promote and push shows that might be newer shows that don't have such audience awareness but because they sit adjacent to a more familiar, well known show, that there's a kind of halo effect, really?

Yes, absolutely.

We have to make sure that the content we would introduce really sits within that schedule.

You don't want to interrupt the uploads with something that's not going to work within the channel.

But yeah, we've recently done something with a sports company where we have put their show into thematic channels for a period and then we can not only guarantee a certain amount of viewership, but we can kind of bring them insights and learnings back about how well it performed or what the suggested traffic source sources were coming into that content, which might validate, for example, how old the audience is for that kind of content.

Yeah.

So that you can, you can look at kind of levels of information through Made for Kids content.

That's, that's really interesting.

So I mean, obviously you manage IP on behalf of those third parties, but that's really interesting in the sense that you can actually take new content from third parties and you can almost see where it fits, find its audience and that validation is quite interesting.

I wasn't aware that you did that.

I think currently we haven't been in a position to offer this.

Right.

As a kind of an incubation service.

I think maybe soon, I don't know, because it's sort of a bit high risk if you're putting entirely new stuff in.

What we've been more doing is looking for kind of strategic partnerships with people where they've got content, long form content that we know would work really well in the hubs.

So I hope one day I think it would be great to be able to kind of have that ability to kind of introduce new content or test new content to those audiences.

Yeah, we shall see.

I feel like we've had like a whole era of algorithmic curation and people being obsessed with algorithms doing the work.

And it's not to say that algorithmic creation doesn't have a place.

It does.

And I think, you know, platforms like YouTube are remarkable in how well they get to know their user and they can surface things.

And not just surface, new things, resurface things.

Right.

That their viewers are looking for, that the users are looking for.

But what it sounds like you're doing Kate as well.

It's just like programming also never went away.

Like being thoughtful about what you're putting together and caring about the audience, trying to build the audience, that's still something that is still really important particularly when you're trying to build a quality audience.

Right.

Which is obviously.

Well, rain are monetizing this by advertising.

It's in your interest to build a really hardcore quality audience that you can use for that.

It's really, I'm like as a, as a programmer, as a former programmer, it gives me hope.

Yeah, I like it and it's important for the audience and by the way it shows up because I think we've done some, one of our channel team has done some really great work this year on Teletubbies looking at a kind of develop early years framework themes and how they can introduce that into sort of playlists again at that age it's the parents picking the videos.

So you've got to speak to them around what the value is of those videos that are, they're selecting and they've seen record results.

So it gives me heart.

It's not just about chucking things up.

The thinking and the care is important and it really matters by the way on the advertising side because I think you know we're hearing a lot more about YouTube.

Advertisers are, you know, they've been on YouTube but, but, but it's evolving and I think not, all, not all content reviews are equal on YouTube.

There's a long tail of other stuff and I think really want to be, you know, to be clear about where you're going to go and the impact that has then you want that, that care and that, that kind of quality.

I, I, I would want from, from a publisher who's, who's putting, who's connecting with the audience.

I, I feel, I feel like advertiser money mainly driven by the, the kind of the macroeconomic situation but also because they're beginning to look at the return on advertising spend and actually track it much closer may be driven by a little bit of a degradation in trust of those algorithms which we're talking about in terms of a programming sense but also has worked with programmatic advertising and if you're a brand that's looking to target that kids and family audience now actually you're going to seek out someone who can do it with slightly more care and brand safety and really target the kind of content against which they want to advertise rather than put it into a black box and just Hope it hits the right audience.

Yeah, definitely.

And we've been talking about brand safety as sort of table stakes, like transparency isn't that important, like being really clear about what you're getting and where it's going and yeah, you should ask for that.

It's important.

And do you think the move to connected TVs does that change the value in terms of.

For the advertiser?

Because I'd imagine that you're moving to a space where it's far more likely you're going to have co viewing with parent and child.

And that's a different audience really than when somebody's on a mobile device.

And it's much more kind of a personal one to one experience.

It feels like it opens up that audience.

Yeah, absolutely.

We've got research that shows that interestingly of all the platforms I think it was YouTube, Amazon, Netflix and Hulu.

YouTube is the highest for parents kind of watching content with their kids.

So I don't think that's just about safety by the way.

I think it's just there's so much available that it's, it is a bit of a go to because you can kind of find anything.

And also if you can find things quickly, it's also easy experience, isn't it?

That sort of.

Yeah, I think it definitely is a much more of a co view, a shared screen experience, et cetera.

And by the way, that's really interesting when it comes to monetization and the growth of media solutions.

If you think about all the advertisers who used to use kids TV as a place to reach parents, that money is.

Where has that gone since people were just thinking about YouTube as just being kids kid only a lot of it is on social media, you know,.

To.

The platforms reaching, reaching parents.

But if you're trying to find a time and a moment between parent and children where they're really feeling really good about something, YouTube strikes me as a really good place to around the right kind of nostalgic TV is a good brand building place where you can get great video stories out.

Okay, yeah, I'd like to dive into that actually Kate.

We're talking about that co viewing and actually it's a high intent environment and that high intent environment is quite attractive to advertisers.

Interestingly this week, just as an aside, at the Stream TV show in Lisbon that I was at, I heard a stat from Marion Roncher that was quite eye opening that the ad free viewer is likely to go extinct in the next 12 months.

So we're in an ad funded world now, and this is the world in which obviously you operate.

Where do you see that ad money going?

We've spoken about advertisers being much more discerning about where they're leveraging their cash in this whole suite and scale that wildbrain has across YouTube and fast.

Where do you think or where do you foresee that ad money is going to go?

Yeah, it's interesting.

I think a little bit comes down to the way that agencies plan and buy media.

So you've got sort of the TV linear investment teams and then you've got digital, which is sort of everything else, and the rest of the world underneath has kind of rearranged themselves.

And YouTube is TV and it's still being bought by a social digital team.

And so look, agency wealth in flux.

This could all change.

But it does strike me that that maybe has been a bit of a barrier for some time.

I do think it's changing.

Our media solutions team doing a lot of work and the story's really landing to get people to understand.

The wild.

Brain TV network is much more akin to delivering that brand building, high intent kind of video advertising experience.

There are so many choices.

I just think coming back to sort of why you would work with a wild brain, et cetera, it's kind of you need to know the content, you need to know the environment and you need to know the impact of what you're doing.

And because we have this network, we can see across YouTube and fast, we can bring you an audience that is incremental across those platforms, which is, I think we're an interesting place to start as a kind of first call of like, how do I operate across this quite fragmented world.

But by the way, there's people that are operating across all of it that can help simplify that.

And you need to work with somebody who you trust knows that audience.

I mean, if we've said it once on this podcast, Emily in particular has said it a million times.

Building in kids is so very different to how you build across everywhere else.

Fandom takes time to grow.

You can't just speed run to franchise success.

So.

And we've kind of fallen into the way of measuring that.

Well, we measure kids content in a very kind of grown up way.

You know, Netflix has been terrible at measuring kids content with the same yardstick as you would measure a grown up drama box set.

And actually, I think now we're getting to the stage where advertisers are beginning to look for opportunities and they're beginning to say Right.

Who knows this audience who understands them and then we'll talk to them about building a solution.

So I think that's really interesting and it's certainly something that I can see is a trend coming through now.

Yeah, kids are always different.

But I also love that about Tate.

You're obviously obsessed with the content, right?

Like, you know, you fully understand the environment, right?

Like you've been working in YouTube and fast for years and then you guys can quantify the impact.

And that's actually one of the benefits of these types of digital like this new age TV network, is that digital measurement is much more immediate, much more in depth, much more profound than, you know, linear, you know, linear TVRs ever were.

So, you know, it's such an opportunity.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

That feels like the real USP of working with like a wild brain as today, as the TV network of today.

Would you say that's correct?

Yeah, absolutely.

The measurement stuff is fascinating by the.

Way, because really measurement, you know, you've come to the right place.

Kate, we're coming to the end of the podcast.

Ow.

I will let Emma get into that with you.

But absolutely, you've got, you know, within Made for kids content on YouTube and it's the same with fast.

And that is by the way, Made for Kids is a, is a YouTube terminology, but we apply it to fast.

Being Copa compliant, KAROO compliant, you only collect a certain amount of data, it's not personally identifiable, et cetera.

So it's harder because you're kind of working with advertisers who have a, are used to then getting a much richer picture on matter or whatever around retargeting, et cetera, of parents.

But I just think you've got to, you know, without going into the weeds of advertising, it's a bit like your sort of performance and brand building argument at the moment.

And it's like you need both, you need to, you need the kind of presenting the brand and getting people to get excited about it and building that fandom and before you kind of point them at ads and products and click throughs to other things, etc.

So you've got to have both really.

And YouTube is a good place and fast to kind of build the depth of storytelling and fans and then you can kind of use other platforms to be more specific about what you want to tell them about.

I know, but it's funny, right?

Because it's like yes, kids, digital data is less rich and as it should be less rich than what adult digital data is but it's still.

You're still getting far more information than you would be if you were taking linear ratings.

Right?

Like, oh, I remember the days of the Excel sheet with all your tv, Coronation Street, a bit of Harry Hill and like, nothing else.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then it's like, you know, it's all estimated.

It's all based on panel, right?

Like.

And, you know, like, subset, right?

Like, you know, you don't know if people are in the room when, when, when it's happening or not, right?

Like, whereas digital, you know, it's.

It's much more in depth.

That's why it's so compelling.

Awesome.

Well, I am looking forward to chatting about that with Emma Watowski is going to be joining us in the next Wild Brain episode of the Kids Media Club podcast.

And then you and me, Kate, are going to be getting into fast in a bit more detail for the kids streamer sphere in the next few weeks.

Because I feel like fast and Kids is something that, like, I spoke about again with Marianne probably around a year ago, but I'm really excited to hear the success you guys are having in it.

So, yeah, looking forward to that.

Oh, thank you for having me.

It's been great.

Awesome.

Andy, do you want to do the sign off?

I will do the sign off, yeah.

Thanks very much, Kate.

That was fascinating.

Hope you guys enjoyed that.

And please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you next week.