Kids Media Club Podcast cover art

Kids Media Club Podcast

Kids Media Club Podcast

By: Jo Redfern Andrew Williams & Emily Horgan
Listen for free

About this listen

 Kids Media Club Podcast is a podcast hosted by Jo Redfern, Andy Williams, and Emily Horgan. In each episode they chat with a different guest about the world of Kids Media. The podcast covers everything from trends in animation to the rise of Edtech.Copyright 2022 Kids Media Club Podcast Economics Marketing Marketing & Sales Politics & Government
Episodes
  • WildBrain's Kate Smith on Why YouTube and FAST Are the Kids TV Network of Today — and What Advertisers Are Missing

    WildBrain's Kate Smith on Why YouTube and FAST Are the Kids TV Network of Today — and What Advertisers Are Missing
    Apr 23 2026

    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
    Show More Show Less
    38 mins
  • Netflix Playground: Is Netflix Building the Answer to YouTube Kids? — A Kids Media Club Bonus Episode

    Netflix Playground: Is Netflix Building the Answer to YouTube Kids? — A Kids Media Club Bonus Episode
    Apr 20 2026
    Episode Title: Netflix Playground: Is Netflix Building the Answer to YouTube Kids? — A Kids Media Club Bonus EpisodeEpisode Summary:A short bonus episode with Andy and Emily Horgan, recorded to react to a significant announcement from Netflix that landed while Emily was on holiday — which she notes felt like being deliberately trolled. Netflix has launched the Netflix Playground app, a dedicated gaming environment aimed at preschoolers and young children, and Emily has thoughts.The context matters here. Emily and her team published a Netflix gaming report back in December, identifying two structural problems with how Netflix games worked: first, users had to download games as separate apps and log in via their Netflix account rather than accessing them seamlessly within the platform; and second, kids games weren't available within kids profiles, creating an awkward tension between safety and discoverability. Shortly after publishing, the Netflix gaming team reached out to acknowledge the issues — and Playground is, in effect, their response.The app is pitched at eight and under, though Emily reads it as skewing younger still. It's ad-free with no in-app purchases, and the integration with Netflix accounts is noticeably more seamless than what came before. The content mix is interesting: alongside expected IP like Peppa Pig and Sesame Street, there are a handful of Dr. Seuss titles, StoryBots (which Netflix owns outright), and — the pick that catches Emily's attention most — Bad Dinosaurs. She reads that inclusion as a signal that Netflix is thinking about underleveraged IP: shows that proved sticky and connected with audiences but were left as one-and-done, with all that demonstrated audience value sitting idle. The same announcement also included a renewal for Trash Truck, a soft preschool show with no new content since 2021 that has nonetheless been quietly hanging around in the Netflix data — the kind of quiet buoyancy, Emily argues, that deserves attention.The bigger question the episode circles is whether Netflix Playground could become a genuine walled-garden alternative to YouTube Kids. Emily's instinct when she first saw the announcement was that this could be exactly that — a fully curated, safe digital environment for young children. At launch it's games only, with no video streaming, and the games themselves lean gentle: jigsaws, colouring, slow-paced play. Emily is genuinely on the fence about whether combining video and games in a single environment would be a good thing for that age group, and notes that parents she's spoken to tend to want a clear distinction between screen-time modes. But the underlying observation stands: YouTube Kids, for all its reach, is algorithmically curated and carries a lot of content that isn't exactly nutritious. If Netflix were to go further with Playground, there's a real gap it could fill.The app launched in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand — but not Ireland, which Emily takes as a personal slight.Key Takeaways:Netflix Playground is a dedicated kids gaming app aimed at eight and under, ad-free and with no in-app purchases — a direct response to the discovery and safety problems Emily's team had identified and published in their Netflix gaming report.The login and access experience is significantly more seamless than Netflix's previous gaming setup, which required separate app downloads and created friction for both parents and kids.The IP selection is telling — Bad Dinosaurs and Trash Truck both signal that Netflix is paying attention to underleveraged content with proven audience buoyancy, rather than defaulting only to its biggest franchises.Quiet persistence in viewing data is worth watching — Trash Truck has had no new content since 2021 yet continues to hang around in Netflix engagement numbers. Emily argues that this kind of staying power without activation is a meaningful signal.The walled-garden question is the big one — Netflix Playground has the potential to position itself as a curated, safe alternative to YouTube Kids, but at launch it's games only, and whether video content follows remains to be seen.Netflix's gaming momentum is deliberate and sustained — this isn't a one-off launch left to find its own level. The Playground app is the latest in a series of iterative moves that suggest gaming is a genuine strategic priority, not an experiment.YouTube Kids has a quality problem that a well-executed Netflix alternative could exploit — algorithmic curation means content of variable quality gets through, and parents of young children are an audience actively looking for something more controlled and curated.
    Show More Show Less
    10 mins
  • Indie Animation Rising: YouTube's New Wave Report, Tiny Chef's Hustle, and Strawberry Vampire's Kickstarter — with Emily Brundige

    Indie Animation Rising: YouTube's New Wave Report, Tiny Chef's Hustle, and Strawberry Vampire's Kickstarter — with Emily Brundige
    Apr 16 2026
    Episode Summary:Jo is away in Lisbon for this episode, leaving Andy and Emily Horgan to kick things off with a discussion about a timely YouTube Culture and Trends report — Animation's New Wave: How Independent Online Animators Are Reshaping the Entertainment Industry — before bringing in a guest who feels almost like the report's cover star: indie animator and creator Emily Brundige of Strawberry Vampire.The episode opens with Andy and Emily Horgan picking apart the YouTube report, which surveyed 614 animation fans aged 14 to 24 and found that the majority prefer watching indie animated series on YouTube over major studio output, and that over half watch animation content in languages other than their own. Emily Horgan is candid about the report's limitations — the sample size is modest, and the framing is clearly designed to serve YouTube's own commercial interests — but argues that the very fact YouTube has invested in packaging and publishing this data is itself meaningful. It signals that independent animation on the platform is something YouTube is actively trying to cultivate, not just observe. The Amazing Digital Circus is cited as the headline proof of concept.The discussion quickly turns to two creators who are living the indie animation reality right now. Tiny Chef — the beloved stop-motion show that started as an indie project, got picked up by Nickelodeon, and was then cancelled in the fallout from the Paramount/Skydance gridlock — is highlighted as an instructive case study in building an ecosystem around a show. The viral cancellation clip that made it onto Good Morning America was the moment, but what mattered as much as the moment was the infrastructure already in place: the Instagram following, the merch website, the email list, the Fwiend Club membership community. Brand partnerships with Greggs and IKEA have since followed — a smart alignment of the chef IP with food and home brands — though Emily Horgan raises the very real challenge of knowing how to value those deals when you have no background in commercial negotiations and your back is against the wall.The second half of the episode brings in Emily Brundige directly, joining from Little Toughy Studio for a check-in on Strawberry Vampire. When the pilot animatic launched last Halloween on a channel with just 2,000 subscribers, it got 60,000 views in 48 hours and has since passed 200,000. A passionate fandom has formed around a show that, at this point, consists of an animatic and a handful of shorts. Now, with a second Kickstarter running — this time with a larger goal so she can actually pay her collaborators properly — she's at 79% funded with six days to go. She describes the campaign as a tight basketball match she's still watching closely, but the response has already validated the core question she was testing: whether fans who love the IP would put their hand in their pocket to make more of it.Emily Brundige is refreshingly open about the reality of being a one-person studio and one-person marketing operation simultaneously. The Substack she launched after her first appearance on the podcast now has over 1,000 readers, feeding back into her YouTube channel and building genuine two-way momentum. The Kickstarter rewards are thoughtfully designed — plushie keychains, pins, stickers, custom painted resin figures by animation industry heavyweights including Penn Ward, Patrick McHale, Lauren Faust, and Jorge Gutierrez — and she's offered ten backers the chance to appear as background characters in the animatic, a clever fandom participation play. The episode ends with Andy and Emily Horgan pledging $150 to get the Kids Media Club podcast a thank you in the credits.Running through the whole conversation is a broader point about what quality means in independent animation. Both Emilys and Andy observe that audiences — particularly the 14-to-24 demographic YouTube is courting — are perfectly happy watching animatics if the characters and story resonate. The definition of production quality is shifting, and authenticity and community are increasingly the things that build lasting audiences, not polish.Support Emily Brundige's Strawberry Vampire Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strawberryvampire/strawberry-vampire-help-us-make-the-next-episodeKey Takeaways:YouTube's indie animation report is as much a strategic signal as a data release — the platform is actively trying to cultivate independent animation as a category, and the report is a way of giving that ecosystem legitimacy and visibility.The 14-to-24 demographic is driving indie animation — YouTube's data points to this age group as the primary audience, and notably the report focuses entirely on them rather than the under-13s. The kids designation remains commercially and regulatorily thorny for creators on the platform.Tiny Chef's story shows that infrastructure matters as much as the viral moment — the cancellation clip ...
    Show More Show Less
    25 mins
No reviews yet