VOL.69/2024.04

 

Bookshelves are Going into TVs!

The collaboration of picture book content and
IPTV companies seen through the case of the “Digital Book Service”

 

2023.10.04

 

 

 

The background and purpose of expanding publishing content into IPTV content

 

 

In 2017, LG U+, the company I’m working for, launched a service for children for the first time called “U+ Kids Service.” The biggest challenge we faced while preparing the service was the difference between what children want to watch and what parents want to show them. In fact, when I interviewed customers, I often heard, “When we started raising children, we got rid of the TV at home and put a bookcase in the living room in place of the TV.” The reason was that they were worried about their children learning the wrong language, being exposed to unnecessary advertisements, and seeing violent or sexually explicit content on TV.
However, despite these concerns, about 60% of Korean children are “digital natives,” meaning that they have access to a variety of digital media, including TVs, smartphones, and PCs, before the age of two. In this environment, the challenge was to create a TV that parents could let their children watch without concerns, so we turned our attention to the many books on bookshelves that have taken the place of the TV. We thought that since there are so many children’s books and picture books around the world with endless stories that stimulate their imagination, it would be satisfying for both parents and children if we could show them on TV. That is how we came up with the “Digital Book Service.”

 

 

Partnering with children’s book publishers

 

When we first started meeting with publishers, it wasn’t easy to convince the writers. Although there were already examples of books being made into animations as secondary works, there were still a lot of concerns about making books media content. There were also concerns that digitizing books would devalue them and further shrink the publishing market. In the case of foreign books, the process took longer than expected because we had to get permission from the author, illustrator, and translator to make videos, and some books took over a year to negotiate.
In the end, many authors and publishers agreed that it was necessary to give children access to books in a variety of ways, and we were able to launch the “Digital Book Service” with the first 50 selected books.
Since then, there have been many trials and errors on how to put books on TV. First, in the process of converting the books to videos, we had to separate the characters, backgrounds, and objects, as they were all illustrated in a single image. This process was very costly and time-consuming, and we had to go through several rounds of previewing and editing to ensure we didn’t misrepresent the author’s intentions.
In terms of production, unlike other animations, we wanted to give children a lot of room to imagine themselves while watching the video. So, we kept the animation effects to a minimum rather than using a lot of dynamic effects, and the sound was produced by an oral storyteller rather than a voice actor to give the impression of a book being read. We also tried to make the TV-based experience as close to the paper book experience as possible by adding the effect of flipping the pages of a book when switching scenes. We also designed the TV screen (User Interface) where the books are displayed to look like books on a bookshelf, unlike the existing animation, to give children the feeling of selecting books they want to read from a bookshelf.
As a result, the response from customers in their 30s and 40s was very positive. Parents commented that they preferred the “Digital Book Service” to other animations and YouTube because they could show it to their children without any worries. We also heard reviews from parents who said their children became more interested in books by watching their favorite books on TV and reading the books they enjoyed on TV in paperback.

 

 

The market’s enthusiastic response prompted competitors to launch similar services, and the digitization of children’s books began to accelerate. Now, with the press of a button on the remote control, the “Digital Book Service” has become a core service of Korean kids’ platforms, where children can choose the book they want to read from the bookshelf on the TV.

 

The current status and prospects of the “Digital Book Serivce”

 

Since its launch in 2017, U+ Kids Service has reached 2.5 million subscribers. The “Digital Book Service” has exceeded 100 million cumulative views and is now expanding its platform from TV to mobile. The service that recommends books according to children’s age, tastes, and preferences is also being upgraded, and the types of books are also being extended to include paperbacks, complete books, and educational books, offering more than 2,000 types of titles.
The age at which children start using media is getting younger and younger, and they are constantly being exposed to unverified content. In this environment, I think it is time for the publishing industry and the media content industry to work together to find ways to ensure that “books,” the medium that parents still trust the most and want to show their children, are chosen not only by parents but also by children.

 

 

While “Digital Book Service” provides stories in books in a way that children can enjoy, it is still very expensive and time-consuming to digitize books, which prevents many books from being made into videos. I believe that if books are produced in a more flexible format that can be digitally converted from the time they are first published, and if there is a platform where complex publishing rights can be traded digitally, it will be possible to introduce children to a much wider range of books from around the world.
Just like how Netflix has made it easier for people to watch diverse content from around the world in their living rooms, I hope that the Digital Book Service will help introduce children to books with stories that have yet to be told.

 

 

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Written by Chae Woo-Sun (Professional at LG U+)