Oct17
In an earlier post, I discussed how production of children’s television could stop dead today and we’d never run out of shows to watch.
So it would seem, in order to really create something worthwhile, a show should deliver something new. Offer something different, that isn’t already sitting there on the shelves of every broadcaster’s archives.
To stand out, a show should fill a need.
Now there are two kinds of needs – those we know we need, and those we don’t yet know we need. The bad news about those needs we know about? They’re filled. Most of them anyway. People tend to try to fill needs the moment they are recognised.
But there are so many needs we don’t yet know about. For example, few people ever thought, you know what? I need a message service that will only let me use 140 characters! And yet now there are people who would be lost without access to Twitter (whether that’s a good thing or not is a whole other discussion). It has become a need, and people will upgrade their tech to get access to it on the go. And Twitter is just one example.
The difficulty here is obvious – often those needs we don’t know about are a tough sell because… until they are out there, the real truth is we don’t need them. The age-old example is this – there was no market for cola until Coca-Cola launched. And look where we are now. Often those things that will hit biggest, will have the most impact in the lives of everyone, will be those things that appear to have no market whatsoever.
So where does that leave us?
Well, when applied to children’s television, I think what it says is this: if you are told that people won’t want your show because there are already shows doing the exact same thing or it offers nothing new, that’s reason to worry. You could be aiming to fill a need so obvious that everyone else has already filled it. Broadcasters already have it.
BUT…
If you are told people won’t want your show because they won’t know what to do with it, or it’s too different or there has never been a market for this ever, hang in there. You just might be on to something.
The ideal? That elusive Holy Grail? That you can fill a need people don’t know about until just the moment you mention it. And their reaction is – wow, why isn’t that on television already?!
Tags: business, Children, writing
