Paw Patrol and the twilight of the world conquering kids TV show
KEITH Chapman is on the receiving end of a multibilliondollar empire fuelled by shows on screen and stage, backpacks and bathing suits, cereal boxes and plastic toys. The 59-yearold 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 recognises Chapman on the street but nearly any preschooler or schoolage parent has likely seen his work. Now in its fifth season on Nickelodeon and Nick Jr., Paw Patrol is the most-watched television show for preschoolers this year, according to Nielsen, and Viacom estimates the show has generated about US$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 US 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.
The chances of a hit are already slim. Success in kids TV requires more than just a great idea-you need talented producers, animators, voice artists, writers and directors, as well as retailers committed to putting toys on its shelves. Now the prospect of a mega-hit has become even slimmer because there are so many shows on multiple platforms, like Netflix, Hulu and YouTube, diluting preschoolers’ attentions. The ratings for kids TV networks like Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel are in steep decline. That means fewer kids to sell toys to-and, with the death of Toys “R” Us, fewer places to sell those toys.
“It’s going to get harder and harder because of all the fragmentation,” said Peter Robinson, head of research at Dubit Ltd., which tracks children’s entertainment habits. “I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing gets to Paw Patrol’s size in the next 10 years.”
The premise of Paw Patrol goes like this: A 10-year-old boy named Ryder organises a team of six puppies with oversize eyes and paws and real-world jobs like firefighter or police officer. In every episode the pups jump into transforming vehicles and save a cat stuck in a tree, stop a runaway train or otherwise prevent a cartoon calamity.
Chapman is not the only one cashing in on the Paw Patrol frenzy. The co-founders of Toronto-based Spin Masterthe 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.
There are dozens of Paw Patrol licensing categories, from live theatre to fruit snacks to birthday cakes to a theme park debuting this week in the Mall of America. The money flows in from consumer products of all sorts. Take Viacom’s deal with Orajel for Paw Patrol-branded toothpaste: Orajel pays a fee to Viacom, which shares the revenue with Spin Master-and after Spin Master takes a cut, Chapman gets a piece of what’s left.
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. He sold the concept to Hit Entertainment, which is now owned by the toy giant Mattel. 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. The British department store chain Woolworths, which shut down in the economic carnage, accounted for about 20 per cent of his company’s income. So 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 came the call from Spin Master, which was 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 - Rocky, a mixed breed, is devoted to recycling. 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 US$10 billion in total revenue, including broadcasting fees, licensing and merchandise, and DVD sales. “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.”