Live from the Australian Children's Content Summit: The State of Australian Kids Media — with Jenny Buckland, Suzanne Ryan, and More

Emily has travelled to Coffs Harbour for the Australian Children's Content Summit, and this episode is her dispatches from the ground — a series of short, sharp conversations captured across the event with some of the key figures shaping Australian kids content right now.

First up is Jenny Buckland, CEO of the Australian Children's Television Foundation, who gives the clearest account of what happened to the Australian kids content industry when commercial broadcaster quotas were dropped in 2020 — and why the timing, colliding with the global streaming disruption, hit harder here than almost anywhere else. Then Suzanne Ryan, founder of both the ACCS itself and SLR Productions, on why she started the summit out of post-Covid isolation and producer fellowship — and why it landed at 260 attendees when she was hoping for 60. The episode also features a conversation with Barbara Stephens from Flying Bark Productions, whose studio is navigating the shift from traditional commissioning to digital-first IP development — including the freshly launched Doom Sweeper music video, which crossed 3 million YouTube views in its first weeks — and the argument that proof of concept is now proof of audience. As well as a discussion with Tina Harris, Co-Founder of Lah-Lah Productions.

The thread running through all of it is the same one dominating kids media conversations everywhere: the traditional funding model is gone, the YouTube creator economy is thriving alongside it, and the most interesting opportunity right now is in the conversation between those two worlds.