Paw Patrol grows into a phenomenon
Kids TV show dominates programming for preschoolers and older age groups as well
Keith Chapman is on the receiving end of a multibillion-dollar empire fuelled by shows on screen and stage, backpacks, bathing suits, cereal boxes and plastic toys.
The 59-year-old lives in Monaco, the affluent principality on the Riviera. He drives Aston Martin sports cars while collecting millions in royalties each year from a group of cartoon puppies that he drew in 2011, and who now appear on televisions in more than 160 countries speaking more than 30 languages.
It’s the kind of animated world domination that even Chapman, the creator of Paw Patrol, worries might never happen again. “It’s harder now to get something to become a success because there are so many channels and so many outlets and so many more shows,” he said in an interview. “If you wrote it all down — from the spark of the idea to a global brand doing a billion dollars a year — it’s almost impossible. It’d be harder than winning the lottery.”
Almost nobody recognizes Chapman on the street, but nearly any preschooler or school-age parent has likely seen his work.
Now in its fifth season on Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. in the United States, Paw Patrol is the most-watched television show for preschoolers this year, according to Nielsen, and Viacom estimates the show has generated about $7 billion in global retail sales. In the fourth quarter of last year, the research firm NPD Group found Paw Patrol got the largest share of U.S. licensed merchandise sales from kids under 15, topping the NFL and Disney’s Frozen, Mickey Mouse and Star Wars.
“I have not seen anything like this in preschool in all of my years,” said Pam Kaufman, Viacom’s president of global consumer products, who has been working in the kids TV business since the early 1990s. “It’s a global phenomenon.”
Paw Patrol may be the high watermark for its breed of carefully engineered global children’s entertainment. It would take “a perfect storm” to create another show as popular, said Jim Silver, an industry analyst and founder of toy review site TTPM.
Before Paw Patrol first aired five years ago, there had been just a few preschool hits since Sesame Street: Peppa Pig, Blue’s Clues, and Dora the Explorer. But nothing that utterly dominated the landscape, Silver said, creating an opportunity for Paw Patrol to fill the void.
Chapman is not the only one cashing in on the Paw Patrol frenzy. The co-founders of Toronto-based Spin Master (the toy company that bought Chapman’s idea) are billionaires and among Canada’s wealthiest people. Spin Master owns the rights to sell Paw Patrol toys and the broadcast rights in Canada, while Viacom’s Nickelodeon has the merchandising rights for other categories and the television rights outside Canada.
Chapman was born in Basildon, a suburb of London, and his teachers often threw him out of class because all he wanted to do was draw cartoons.
He graduated from art school and started his career in advertising, then took a job working for Jim Henson and the Muppets. That’s where he learned the business of kids entertainment. He spent nights trying to create his own characters and came up with ideas for children’s books, TV shows, cartoon strips and greeting cards.
“I’ve got this mind that won’t stop churning out ideas,” said Chapman, who has at least 25 concepts in various stages of development, including kids programs, reality shows, sitcoms and movies.
In the late 1990s, he got his first breakthrough with Bob the Builder, a show about a friendly construction worker and his team of machines. It became one of Britain’s most popular kids shows.
In 2002, he started his own production company, Chapman Entertainment, but when the global recession hit in 2008, parents stopped buying expensive toys.
Chapman was forced to shut things down. The bank seized his intellectual property and sold the shows to DreamWorks Animation, which is now owned by Comcast Corp. About 80 employees working for Chapman’s company were laid off.
Around that time, Spin Master came calling, soliciting famous creators of kids TV shows for ideas around “action adventure” and “transformation.” Chapman thought all kids could relate to puppies; his three sons had dogs growing up, as did Chapman. Dog kennels, he figured, would be the perfect device for transforming into emergency vehicles.
He called his concept Robbie and the Rescue Dogs. Spin Master liked the idea but thought the name wasn’t right. The dogs, after all, do community service as well as rescue missions. Paw Patrol was born.
Chapman gets a cut of the fee for every episode of Paw Patrol that airs, plus consulting fees and a share in the profits from licensing and merchandise. He estimates that his shows, including Bob the Builder, have generated more than $10 billion in total revenue.
“To walk around and see kids wearing the backpacks or the clothes, I get a real kick out of it,” he said. “I’m totally anonymous. I can just watch and feel quite proud about that.”
Viacom has spent large sums of money on marketing, and schedules the show excessively. Paw Patrol airs several times a day every day on Nickelodeon and Nick Jr., not to mention Paw Patrol marathons that can run for seven hours straight.
In Canada, it airs daily on Ontario-based TVO and is also on the TVO Kids Channel on YouTube.
Paw Patrol also appeals to a broader age range than most preschool shows.
The dogs play the roles of police officers and firefighters, and those are the types of jobs that preschoolers idolize.
“You’re playing out the adventure,” Silver said. “It’s not just the dogs. It’s the character of the dogs. You have to remember, the dogs are heroes.”