Madeline Nilsson has a podcast for children between 9-15 years old at Swedish Radio. At this age there are many questions the children have and this is a podcast on these thoughts and questions from this age group. But it’s children answering children on the podcast. The podcast also has a YouTube format, some clips from this channel were shown which are fun, interesting and sharing experiences.
Madeline also found she had to adapt to working with young people, they had to spend time with the young people to coach them on how to speak and direct them on what they are doing. The shows are 11 minutes, audiences want something bite sized but then they are happy to watch a Youtuber who will have a show for 1 hour!
Erwann described how France Inter is the first radio station trying to reach young children through a podcast in France. The podcast is called Oli, it’s safe, accessible content for this age group. Oli is a podcast children can listen to alone or in a family situation. It’s hoped that this podcast will open a discussion with their children, for 5-8 year olds. It’s going to be a book and a TV show. There will be 5 new stories next month and next year 24 new stories. It’s been downloaded 5m times.
They are also launching a podcast for 8-12 yos next week which describes big historical events. It’s quality and safe content which reassures parents that it’s something which young people can listen to and it’s without a screen which is a key point.
The team on the podcast have learned that they have to be really good with the sound design, so children can go into a universe where they travel with the sound. To communicate with listeners these podcasts are cross promoted on the main station radio shows. They think that these podcasts will then become radio shows. For the youngest children you have to find the children through the parents. They are working with airlines as having podcasts for flights is golden.
350k children listen to Fun Kids a week. There are a number of podcasts from Fun Kids giving a range of Fun Kids content. They use online and on-air content and build extra parts of content into the podcast. There are characters within the podcasts which the children can relate to.
Schools use the podcasts for learning and the podcasts are sponsored which also promote the podcast to a wider audience. There is a Polish learning podcast which has promoted the podcast to this market. The tone for the podcasts has to be serious as well as fun, for podcasts 12yo is about the age they aim for as an audience. It’s helpful for child self discovery to have guests who the children know and also ask the children to send questions to guests.