Considering 72% of kids’ daily viewing is on streaming services such as YouTube and Netflix, and 52% of households use SVODs as a primary source of content consumption (DHX/Ipsos survey, September 2016), business is particularly busy these days for UK-based digital distributor and content management agency MoMedia.

The company, which has been delivering kids TV and film content to broadcast and digital platforms including Netflix, Amazon and iTunes since 2012, recently secured deals with leading YouTube kids properties Hooplakidz, Badanamu, ChuChu TV and Lottie Dottie Chicken. Factor in its existing multi-year agreement with Outfit7’s kids series Talking Tom and Friends, and MoMedia now manages five of the top-10 YouTube kids brands.

Indian brand ChuChu TV, alone, has more than 9 billion video views and over 10.5 million subscribers, while multichannel network Hooplakidz represents about two-thirds of its owner YoBoHo’s three billion-plus annual views.

Things have been moving very quickly for the company, according to its founder and CEO Lucas Bertrand—particularly since inking deals with Hasbro and DreamWorks Classics in 2015.

Terms of the Hasbro agreement include the repackaging and distribution of shows like My Little Pony and Transformers: Rescue Bots in multiple languages across global transactional VOD platforms (excluding the US, Australia and New Zealand).

The DreamWorks deal, meanwhile, covers 800 eps from TV series such as Postman Pat, Noddy and Tinga Tinga Tales, selling to VOD platforms outside of North America.

For both deals, MoMedia provides social media marketing campaigns and promotional activity, as well as real-time analytics and data on illegal torrents.
Among the company’s other library assets are Zinkia’s Pocoyo, CBBC series Operation Ouch and 37 hours of Shaftesbury series, including four seasons of Life with Derek.

“Our acquisitions strategy is two-fold. One, we look for traditional or strong TV brands from partners that have a portfolio and a pipeline of new products,” says Bertrand. Secondly, he says he looks at key markets based on the popularity of the content, at what broadcasters are saying, sales teams involved and YouTube presence. Piracy rates are also analyzed as a gauge of a series’ popularity.

“Then we put together a strategy around which content to deliver to each platform,” he says. “For example, longer compilation content for transactional platforms, and shorter content for AVOD platforms like YouTube. Or we could deliver via apps into Roku, Amazon Fire, Google Chromecast or Apple TV.”
MoMedia also focuses on acquiring digital IPs. “We want brands on digital platforms that have huge audiences, which is why we have a property like Talking Tom,” says Bertrand.

He notes that the company looks to sign mostly multi-year deals because of the time required to get titles to market in a long distribution cycle.

“If you put content onto a transactional platform, it will take a couple of months to ramp up. Then getting titles promoted and in the right slots throughout the year takes time,” says Bertrand. AVOD, for example, requires building an audience. Getting titles to market and making money on SVOD and paid services, on the other hand, involves long deal cycles.

The biggest challenge, though, according to Bertrand, is keeping up with where the audience is and staying informed of service changes.

“When you’re building out revenue streams for partners, it’s challenging when all of a sudden you see some massive changes in where the money comes from,” he says. “We do a lot in preschool content because transactional was downloading content, and SVOD wasn’t. But I suspect this could change now that Netflix and Amazon are offering downloads. This is just typical of the digital space in terms of how quickly things change.”