One of the biggest growth areas for composers has been the number of television channels which have appeared over the past ten to fifteen years, spurred by the spread of digital TV and the government actively promoting digital broadcasting in the run-up to the analogue switch-off.
There has been a commensurate explosion in the number of children’s TV channels and shows on air, especially pre-school, with extremely popular shows such as Teletubbies, Fimbles, Bob The Builder and Tweenies having emerged in that period. But, at the same time, competition has sharpened, budgets have been cut and issues around TV companies engaging in buy-out deals with composers are still firmly on the agenda.
Baby boom
While pre-school children’s TV, as its name suggests, is generally regarded as programming for the under-5s, one of the most innovative and successful shows of recent times, Teletubbies, was aimed at 18-month-old babies. Andrew McCrorie-Shand has been writing music for children’s TV for 14 years, most notably for Teletubbies with production company Ragdoll.
‘It’s hard to believe, but when I started there was no pre-school market to speak of’, he says ‘Then there was a sudden expansion and we surfed the wave.
‘Generally television is a godsend to write for: writing to pictures gives me loads of clues as to how to pitch the music. And writing music for kids is a great challenge; you let yourself go and let the child within you go. None of the programmes are “knowing”, in other words trying to please adults.’
But he says that successful shows are always the result of a close working partnership between the composer and the production company.
‘It was a very close development on Teletubbies from the very beginning,’ he says. ‘Programmes are made for the target audience — there are no illusions that we’re making grown-up music. The music is part of the whole package and is instantly recognisable, even if the child or parent is out of the room. Children’s TV is on every day, so brand awareness is very rapid.’
Robin Stevens at Ragdoll has worked with McCrorie-Shand on Rosie and Jim and Tots TV. ‘Andrew is good at using music to tell a story,’ he says, ‘and sometimes knowing when to leave spaces between the music is as important as the music itself.’
Taking care of business
McCrorie-Shand says pre-school is a good place to start if you’re looking to make a career out of writing for media: ‘There’s more out there, whereas the number of dramas being made is limited. Other than that, there’s no difference to getting the job than there is for any Television work.’
But he adds, if you are going to make a start in pre-school, you need to do your research as you would if you were working in any other business.
‘The fact is, it is a business. Sending your CD out and expecting the world to beat a path to your door is unrealistic. Read the journals – Broadcast, Campaign – find out what’s going on; know your market; make the contacts. Get as much information as you can from PRS, the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters. Get yourself a pool of information; you can never have too much.’
And, of course, once you’ve got your music on TV, follow the basic rules: ‘Join PRS as a writer member and if you are unpublished make sure you register your works with PRS as soon as possible’.
"Know your market, make the contacts – it’s no different to getting any TV job"
Andrew McCrorie Shand
Building relationships
Paul Joyce wrote the music for Bob The Builder and similarly fell in love with the genre.
He worked on an animation series in his home town of Nottingham before contacting the BBC, who asked him to write music for their new series of Noddy. The job of writing music for Bob The Builder came along in 1998. He went on to write music for the Fimbles.
Recently Joyce has been working on The Snow Queen, a one-hour special that was broadcast by the BBC on Christmas Day. ‘Because I got lucky with Bob The Builder that gave me the financial freedom to follow my artistic leanings,’ he says.
Joyce concurs with McCrorie-Shand that success is down to close collaboration with the show’s producers, in Bob’s case, Hot Animation.
‘It’s important to sit down with the producers so that you know exactly what they want,’ says Joyce. ‘It’s not easy. It’s like writing mini pop songs, you have to encapsulate a whole mood in anything between thirty seconds and a minute. Verse…chorus…possibly a bit of a middle eight…and chorus again.’
At the same time, he says, the whole process can’t be formulaic and that element of personal creativity cannot be compromised.
‘I’m a songwriter and I write songs that fit the brief of the production company,’ he says. ‘But I wouldn’t do anything that I didn't personally like.’
As well as the music itself, he says that lyrics are vitally important.
‘How the words scan and beginning a sentence is important,’ he says. ‘They have to be punchy and strong so the words don’t get lost. They wanted a catchy song for the title song, but nothing rhymed with “builder”, so I came up with the “Can we fix it?” line.’
The rest is history as they say, with the series even producing a hit single, and with a new series launching this autumn.
Brief encounters
Jackie Cockle, managing director of Hot Animation, which also produces Pingu and Rubberdubbers, says Bob The Builder’s popularity was the result of working with the right person.
‘We put the brief out to demo and approach lots of musicians, who we often brief individually,’ she says. ‘It’s about finding someone who gets what you have in your head and about building a very special bond between you.’
Joyce himself says that he would recommend any songwriter to investigate writing for kids’ TV, but that, despite the number of channels now available, the area is very competitive.
‘The good thing about kids’ TV is that there will always be kids,’ he says. ‘But with increased competition, production budgets have also been cut. Composers are squeezed a bit. You have to be resourceful and bring in good theme for under a grand. The bottom line is you have to write really good songs.’
"The bottom line is you have to write really good songs"
Paul Joyce
Kitchen drama
Another massively successful children’s TV series is the Tweenies, which features music written by Liz Kitchen.
Liz studied percussion at Royal Northern College of Music in 1980 and went on to become a freelance percussionist for orchestras and the theatre. Her first break in TV came when she was invited to play drums on BBC’s Playdays (the show which took over from Playschool) and went on to become a presenter on The Dot Shop.
She was subsequently asked by Tell-Tale Productions to do the music for a pilot of the Tweenies, working with Graham Pike on the music. The Tweenies was picked up by the BBC and became one of its most popular children’s series.
‘It’s been very successful and music has been a big part of that,’ says Kitchen, who adds that her work in the theatre informed her writing: ‘I approach music from a dramatic point of view.
I don’t see myself as a composer, but as someone who writes songs for whatever is required.’
In keeping with other children’s TV writers, she says there has to be a certain level of honesty about the work.
"You don’t have to write down to children"
Liz Kitchen
‘You don’t have to write down to children,’ she says. ‘My thing is melody. If you have a nice melody, a child will grasp and react to it and have an emotional response to it. It’s an intimate journey and you have to write immediately accessible songs.’
Kitchen signed a publishing deal with BBC Worldwide on the series, and believes you have to strike the deal that’s best for you.
‘I was very happy with the deal, but you've got to get a lawyer involved at that stage,’ says Kitchen. ‘Being tied into a contract on the basis of a publishing deal is an issue, although I’ll do it if it’s worth it. You have to look at a publisher as your equal. You’re working in partnership — you make the product and they sell it.’
This piecemeal way of doing deals is not ideal however, according to Clare Bradley, series producer for CBeebies. ‘It s about time we started looking at making contracts more equitable,’ she says. ‘It’s a problem. I deal with composers, but the contracts are all determined by copyright departments.’
Kids’ TV programmes are often such large projects that they need more than one writer, says Kitchen.
Tweenies was over 200 programmes with three songs per show, so it’s not possible for one person to do the whole thing,”’she says.
More recently Kitchen has worked on Tikkabilla, a BBC magazine-format show for the under-fives.
And so to bed
As much as any financial gain, children’s TV is seen by those in the business as fulfilling work.
‘It should be fun,’ says Hot Animation’s Jackie Cockle. ‘As producers you start with a blank sheet and you start creating characters, and working out how they look and the world they live in. And then the music is a whole new layer of creativity laid over that, finding the sound that fits the production then sustaining and developing it. It’s really rewarding to get the music right and complement the animation.’
As far as the future goes, while children are dedicating more time to the computer and computer games, one thing’s for sure: there will always be kids and there will always be kids’ TV.
This article originally appeared in M19, published in March 2006