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MOTION PICTURE & PRO-VIDEO company news
Professional Video • Exposure • 19
brands, boasting top-rated shows like the aforementioned Spider-Man, Jackie Chan’s Adventures and female sleuth cartoon, Totally Spies.
“It’s more competitive than the States here,” says Finnegan, who has been with the company “since the dawn of time!” That’s actually since September 1996, when he arrived as Head Of Ad Sales. He gradually rose through the ranks and now pays for a staff of twenty-nine.
“We’re all driven into fairly tight niches in order to be successful. We say that our core demographic is chil- dren aged 7-11, but in reality, when we are looking to acquire something, we are thinking ‘will this appeal to boys aged 6-9?’ We don’t actively try and alienate girls, but we predominantly appeal to a male audience.”
Of course, while in the Dutch mar- ket they enjoy a large market share thanks a lack of channels, in the British multi-channel universe, it’s a different story.
Finnegan admits: “In the UK mar- ket, we are talking fragments of an audience share, because of the prolif- eration of multi-channel. There has been a tendency in the past for kids’ channel operators to compete against each other for advertising revenue. But what WE should be doing is com- peting against ITV.”
He continues: “I’m a firm believer there should be one kids’ sales house, which is a controversial view and I’m not sure my counterparts feel the same. But for me, it’s not about nick- ing a share point off the Cartoon Network, it’s about taking five, ten share points from ITV.”
Despite the responsibility to his shareholders and bosses to bring in as much audience and revenue as possi- ble, one of the new challenges facing Finnegan is the consensus on the state of child obesity and lack of aerobic exercise. Obviously, this is something at odds with his business sensibilities.
“Encouraging kids to be active is important to us. And some of our new short-form original programming will reflect that. I think that kids’ diets have always been pretty unhealthy. But when I was a kid,
I was always outside. I think the gov- ernment has to bear some responsi- bility for that, discouraging competi- tive sport in schools.
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