Shorts Newsletter - 14 July 2022

NZ On Air has recently commissioned the Aotearoa Screen Publicity Collective (ASPC) to produce two documents that provide guidance on publicity for Children's content producers.

The Publicity Planning Toolkit is a general guide for New Zealand screen producers. It provides a background on buzzwords, acronyms and screen industry lingo used in the publicity space, as well as breaking down the various roles in publicity (from unit stills photographers to graphic designers to social media strategists) who do the work of reaching audiences.

The ASPC has also provided a two-page Top Ten Things To Think About document for Children's content producers to consider when preparing their audience engagement strategies, schedules and budgets for NZ On Air applications.

Please note, this document mentions carving out budget for boosting social posts and/or paid digital advertising. As announced below, NZ On Air has partnered with local agency Contagion to work alongside Children's content producers in this space, so marketing and promotion costs do not need to be included in your budgets. NZ On Air is happy to discuss this further if you have any pātai.

Following a competitive pitch process, NZ On Air has engaged local agency Contagion to work alongside Children’s media producers to plan and buy media to ensure that more New Zealand tamariki find great funded local content.

As well as working with NZ On Air to provide regular training sessions to empower producers with their marketing, Contagion will be able to apply learnings and scale across NZ On Air's funded Children’s content.

Successful applicants will be guided on how this will work once decisions are announced but please feel free to contact Cat Goodwin or Amie Mills if you’d like to discuss this prior to submission.

Ahead of the upcoming Children's content funding round, NZ On Air had hoped to provide more guidance to producers about how best to approach YouTube Kids if you’re interested in your content featuring there.

We are still in talks with Google, so with awareness of the funding deadline looming, we are comfortable with producers addressing how they see their content living on YouTube, and outlining if they see a home for it on YouTube Kids. You will not be required to have lined-up anything explicit in regards to YouTube Kids prior to submission.

A reminder that we have a new funding opportunity for a multi-broadcaster Matariki 2023 children's special. Producers do not have to seek platform support for their application, and applications to this fund do not count toward their three maximum submissions (as stated in the guidelines).

For more information about the Matariki 2023 RFP, please see paragraph I in the July/September Children's content funding round document here.