Alexa, read me a story: Audio content for kids on the rise
NEW YORK — Melanie Musson in Belgrade, Montana, does a lot of driving with her four girls. Juggling a broad age range, 1 to 9, she's forever searching for ways to keep them all entertained without relying entirely on video.
While she still adores paper and tablet books for her kids, Musson said: "I think when they hear without seeing, they have to make up visuals in their heads. That's so good. They have to be engaged and get more out of it."
There are plenty of quality audiobooks, podcasts and music for the young, she noted, but weeding through thousands of selections and jumping from platform to platform is a challenge since audio content has exploded over the last few years.
Audiobooks and music for kids have been around awhile, but podcasts made for the 3-to-12 set are relatively new, driving more parents to choose one-stop platforms that include all formats.
Demand is "primarily driven by parents who are podcast listeners or audiobook fans,'" said Frannie Ucciferri, associate managing editor for the nonprofit Common Sense Media.
With a huge bump in podcasts overall, the value of audio content for kids hasn't been lost on companies large and small.
Spotify recently launched a new ad-free app, Spotify Kids, as a free extension for premium family subscribers. Not yet available in the U.S., it's packed with singalongs, soundtracks and stories for children as young as 3. A platform called Pinna is among the latest to launch ad-free with a variety of content and ages in mind, at $7.99 a month or $79.99 a year. Others stick to podcasts alone, while Amazon's FreeTime Unlimited allows parents to customize a child's experience to provide the most relevant books, videos, apps and more without ads, starting at $2.99 a month.
Old-school broadcasters are also getting into the act. Boston's WGBH, for instance, widely shares free of cost two of its top podcasts for young people: "Molly of Denali," based on the TV series about a girl in Alaska, and "The Creeping Hour," for ages 8 to 12. More are planned as part of the public affiliate's "ongoing exploration of audio storytelling," said WGBH spokeswoman
Jeanne Hopkins.
Maggie McGuire is a former teacher who has been in children's media for more than 20 years. She's now CEO of Pinna, which is backed by the Graham Holdings Co., formed from what remained of The Washington Post Co. after the Post itself was sold to Jeff Bezos five years ago.
Pinna both curates and creates for kids ages 3 to 12. It offers more than 2,000 audiobooks, podcasts and songs while also producing original podcasts, all ad-free and in compliance with federal standards aimed at protecting children's privacy and safety online, McGuire said. It's available as an app and usable off the Pinna.fm website.
Podcasts, McGuire said, are a "fresh new format that everyone's very excited about."
The company worked with parents and teachers to understand what they were looking for in audio content. Among their priorities were a "one-stop solution" and a high level of curation to ensure quality and that all content was tucked into a safe platform exclusively for kids.
"There's a real desire now to figure out how the media diet in a kid's day, in a kid's week, can include things that aren't wholly screen-based," McGuire said.
Last year, Pinna produced 25 podcasts of its own, and plans to grow that number this year. Its slate of originals accounts for half the listening among its consumers, McGuire said. The company plans to launch curated playlists this month. Not unlike other streamers, Pinna will mix new content with classic stories and other familiar standards.
Included is Pinna's Peabody-winning podcast, "The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel," a serial mystery performed by middle graders for middle graders. Another popular original is "Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest," a series of fairy tales retold. It was written and produced by Adam Gidwitz, bestselling author of "A Tale Dark and Grimm."
For younger kids, Pinna partnered with Random House Children's Books to turn the publisher's popular Ron Roy book series, "A to Z Mysteries," into a podcast. Mo Willems and Rick Riordan are among top names in the company's audiobook lineup on Pinna, along with music from Kidz Bop, They Might be Giants and Ralph's World.