Creating Podcasts for Kids: Lynn Kestin Sessler

Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription software errors.

Jeff Umbro: This week on Podcast Perspectives. What makes a great children's podcast stand out from the rest?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: Incredible songs, stories, music. If it's making me sing along, it's probably making the kids sing along. I'm kind of a big kid myself.

Jeff Umbro: Lynn Kestin Sessler is a Peabody, Webby and Parents' Choice Award-winning producer and development executive who animated series, digital podcasts and live action TV programming for PBS, Nickelodeon, Netflix, Nick Jr. Sesame Street, Penna, and MTV Networks. What a list. We'll talk about how legacy media is embracing podcasts for vision for children's storytelling and what it takes to make this work sustainable.

Welcome to the show, Lynn.

Lynn Kestin Sessler: Thank you, Jeff. So good to be here.

Jeff Umbro: So walk us through your career, 'cause you've worked across tv, digital, audio. Much of it was in children's media.

Lynn Kestin Sessler: So interesting. I was very lucky. Right out of college I got a job at Nickelodeon. I started my career at Nickelodeon as a production assistant and went through their producer and training program that they had at the time, and they were like, Hey, this is how you be a producer. You can. Go. Here's how you write a script. Now go write one. Here's how you direct a voiceover session. Now go do that, et cetera. 

I was in the Nick promo department and it was an incredible education, and as soon as I walked into those doors, I thought, this is where I wanna stay so creative. It was so fun. You could use your imagination and you were doing good things for kids and families.

So how could you not do it? It was great.

Jeff Umbro: I have a few friends that have worked at Nickelodeon over the years, and I've never really thought about this before, but I think all of them lasted for like over a decade. That must be an amazing place. So you have been behind some of the most beloved children's shows. Was there a defining moment in your career that set you down this path?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: Well I have to say I've been super lucky. I have worked at Sesame Street and a lot of PBS kid's shows a bunch of great shows for Nickelodeon. I was lucky enough as a young producer to work at Shalom Sesame, the Shalom Sesame Street series, and we shot in the US, a bunch of different places here, and then we went to Israel for a month and shot there.

And it was like all the best things that happens at Sesame Street was, you know, Muppets and live action, you know, funny bits and celebrities and animation and I just learned a lot about what it was like to put together a series. It was an international series, which was really interesting. And so I would say that. It set me off on a lot of different directions that was really pivotal in my career.

Jeff Umbro: You came up in like tv, digital film, et cetera. At what point did you start thinking about podcasting?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: I always loved audio 'cause I was an animation producer for so many years. Audio just really brings fun pictures to life, you know, it just helps create the world in a way that's very special. The music, the sound effects, the voices, and so I always loved working in that space. I used to just hang out at the sound studios all the time, and I worked on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, the game show for four years and my job was to make animation and so I just lived at the audio studios. So that was always my favorite part. 

And I would say fast forward to maybe 10 years ago where I started to really get into the podcast space itself as its own medium, if you will. And you know, was lucky enough to create podcasts for Highlights Magazine for Children. I partnered with Audible there and Noggin actually, which is the educational arm it was of Nickelodeon. 

Pinna, which was another kids' space, and Common Sense Media was putting together podcasts. And also we were able to do that kind of work during the pandemic when so many other things shut down. And so the podcast world exploded and it was just an excellent time to be in the world of podcasts.

Jeff Umbro: I want to double click on that for a second, because you operate in a kind of niche spot within podcasting of children's media. Why podcasts when it comes to kids? Is there something unique to that medium when it comes to like children programming?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: You know what? It is such a special space, you know? I feel like there's a real white space there actually for kids. Especially during the pandemic, it felt like this is the time for podcasts to shine because kids were, you know, stuck inside. They couldn't do the regular things that they wanted to do that made them kids, and they also just felt like they needed something to make their imagination spark and grow.

And so the podcast space was the perfect venue, I think, to put my creativity. And to explore it. And now that we're supposedly out of the pandemic, at least we're not stuck in the house the whole time. It's just a great thing to do for kids and families, especially like routine stuff, bedtime, nighttime, in the mornings, in the car.

Like you know, parents just need a little break.

Jeff Umbro: How are kids consuming this? Is it in like that found time like on the way to school or before bed? Are kids sitting in the living room listening instead of watching tv? How does it work?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: So it's all of these important times. Routine times are very important times for podcasts, so, it's in the morning when they're getting ready for school. It's after school or daycare. It's in the car, right? You're going to school, you're going to grandma's house. It's the perfect place to put on a podcast. It's for after they get home from school and mom and dad just need, or caregivers just need a little more time to get dinner ready or get another email out the door. You know, they could put on a podcast. 

They've got something on that's kind of good for them because it'll spark their imaginations. Also, bedtimes are a really good time, right? Routine. It's songs, stories, affirmations, it's stretching, at least the podcast shows that I do for bedtime. It's important.

Jeff Umbro: We worked with a client on a children's. It was pretty popular and when I saw the data on that, I was blown away because we actually saw the consumption data was like 200 to 300% for every episode, which for the uninitiated basically means that somebody was hitting play on these things like many times over.

So there's also like a heat map on Megaphone that shows like when people are downloading the episodes, and it was like Monday through Thursday between six and 8:00 PM was 95% of the downloads. It was wild. I'd never seen anything like it. 

So I have a lot of questions around, this is ultimately like a show about the business and mechanics of podcasting. And so I have a bunch of questions around the utility behind making a kid's program. Presumably you're not going out and monetizing that through advertising. Is that accurate?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: I mean, we have an advertising partner, someone who's looking for advertising, but we're still a very new business. I work a lot with Nickelodeon and help them launch the kid podcasting space there. And so that is, you know, we're trying a lot of different things. There's, we did some subscription stuff for our Avatar: the Last Airbender podcast we call Braving the Elements.

We did a subscription model last year there. That one is actually a little bit easier to sell because that's a general audience one. So that one, you can have a little more flexibility. It's tougher, right? With the COPPA laws for the kids' space. So.

Jeff Umbro: Just for anyone who doesn't know, that just means basically you can't retarget to children.

Lynn Kestin Sessler: Exactly.

Jeff Umbro: How did the subscription service go?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: So we had a lot of special stuff that we did behind the paywall. We had special segments that were not available to the people who didn't subscribe. We had early access. We did special behind the scenes stories. Janet Varney and Dante Basco are our co-hosts, and they are beloved in the Avatar space, the Avatarverse, I should say.

And so people just love, they cannot get enough hearing from them. It's a mix. I would say yes. You know, we don't shoot all year round record with them. We do 40 episodes a year, generally, and so I think we're learning, it's a learning time, it's a learning space, and but that one, you could sell more ads to the younger kid properties, that's a little tougher.

So we're trying to make deals with, you know, the players, the audibles of the world. We have several podcasts with them, and that's been a very lovely partnership that's worked very well. So we're seeing what's out there. We're figuring it out.

Jeff Umbro: What I'm hearing is that there are some instances where you can monetize these shows through advertising, some where you can monetize it through premium service offerings. The purpose of this, beyond the entertainment factor, is this is another touch point where you can expand the reach of the brand for each of these properties.

Is that accurate?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: I would say that's accurate. When I worked with Highlights Magazine for Children, you know, that magazine that you would see in dentist's office, doctor's offices. Up until that point, they had not done any media aside from their legacy, you know, wonderful magazines.Podcasting, expanded their reach, gave them new audiences.

We created four original series for them, something based on Goofus and Gallant. Another one based on Ask Arizona, another one based on Highlights Mystery Theater, and another one called Lola Chick. We sold it to Audible. All of the shows ran for two different seasons. It was fantastic. It expanded their audience. It made some money for both Highlights and for Audible because it expanded their imprint and their connections to legacy audiences and loyal audiences. Fans who just loved the brands and would go anywhere where the the brands lived. It was a great experience on both sides.

Jeff Umbro: What is kind of the addressable market for a lot of these properties? Is it presumably just an extension of the television audience?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: There are lots of ways to treat kids' podcasting on the video side of things. As long as you have strong stories, songs, that might be great, but the most important thing is to have great characters. That is what's gonna pull your audience in. Yes, visuals are important. You shouldn't just have a waveform because kids are looking at all kinds of content when they're deciding what they're gonna listen to or what they're gonna watch.

So sure, if you can afford to do a nice, fully animated podcast, that's fantastic, but you don't have to do that as long as you have great stories, great characters, some fun music, you're gonna pull 'em in. But just think about the different ways you could do a simple graphics. You could take your character and just move them across the stage or the screen in a fun way. You can make their eyes blink and their arms kind of wave a little bit. Just light animation. That's another way to do it. And be engaging. 

But again, it's all gonna come back to you have a great character. You have a great story. You have some music and some sound effects that'll bring that world to life.

That's the key.

Jeff Umbro: That sounds to me like a lightweight version of what most kids programming is doing on television. Is that accurate?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: People are experimenting with different ways to treat content, YouTube content for podcasting. It doesn't need to be a heavy duty, you know, TV light version of the content. There's lots and lots of ways that are creative and fun that'll hold kids' attention. Simple animations, they're just carefully moving your characters across the screen, but doing it in a really fun and engaging way.

Of course, keeping the sound front and center, the stories, the music, the songs, those should always be there. Those should always be prominent. In terms of the visuals, it doesn't just have to be what people consider, you know, the classic version of linear tv. There's lots of really fun ways to approach it, and kid podcasters today are exploring lots of different ways. I mean, I'm doing it in lots of my different shows for lots of my different clients. I think if the characters are engaging, the stories are engaging, the music and the storylines are engaging, you're gonna pull 'em in and you don't have to have, you know, expensive 3D animation to do it.

You just have to have a great story, a great character, and great songs, maybe great music behind it to make it shine.

Jeff Umbro: So legacy media is obviously investing in podcasting now. That is something that has become very apparent in the last decade. Where do you see the biggest opportunities for kids' audio content?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: I think it's a big wide open space. Games, game shows are important. I'd say leaning into stuff that you could do in the car. Interactive I think is very important and I'm excited to play in that space. I'm dabbling a little bit in it. I have a Paw Patrol podcast that we just did where you're supposed to be riding along with the Paw pups, right? So you're riding right there alongside Marshall and his firetruck, or you're in the helicopter with Sky and flying around to go do a rescue adventure. 

But there's lots of interactive kind of opportunities. There are choose your own adventure kind of opportunities. I think that is all wide, wide open for us to go play in and explore.

Jeff Umbro: I sent that podcast by the way, to my nephews. They are huge Paw Patrol fans.

Lynn Kestin Sessler: Oh, well then they will love it.

Jeff Umbro: What is your dream project like? If you had unlimited resources and you could work with any company in the world with any IP, what is it?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: I mean, I have to tell you, I've been so lucky to work with some of the best companies out there between Sesame and Nickelodeon and a lot of the PBS kid properties. Like The Cat in the Hat and Ready Jet Go and Word Girl. I would love to just keep doing it. I wanna do all the things. I wanna investigate all the kid Nick properties that there are.

I wanna play in the space with a lot of the PBS kid properties. I wanna just dive in. There's just so much to explore and do.

Jeff Umbro: I ever make a kids' podcast, you are the first person I'm calling.

Lynn Kestin Sessler: Yes, please do. It is my passion.

Jeff Umbro: You've worked with basically all of these companies, but like who are the companies out there that are doing interesting things right now with children's programming in audio?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: Yeah, well certainly Nickelodeon is, I would say Sesame Street is for sure. PBS is playing in that space a lot. They have the Arthur podcast, the Pinkalicious podcast. They've got some original podcasts that are out there. So I think that's pretty great. You know, and I've been talking to some of my friends in the business and we have ideas, you know, of different kinds of shows to do.

I would love to do something where we continue to inspire kids, not just so they can touch and feel and play with their favorite characters, but also to like experience parts of the world. Like they should know what it really is like to, you know, do certain jobs in the world, right? A lot. You don't know really what it goes into becoming a record producer say, or a professional basketball player or that kind of thing.

So I like to go talk to the real people that like people that you know and love that do that kind of thing and let them inspire the next generation of kids to know, 'cause sometimes you don't really know what some of these jobs are. Right? Like a recording engineer, what is that? Oh, well they actually do amazing things.

Jeff Umbro: It's so funny that you say this because you, you're bringing up a memory for me. Pre pandemic, a high school in New Jersey, hired myself and one of our producers to come to their school and spend a day teaching all their kids how to make podcasts. 

It was so fun. We spent the day with them and I think 25 of the 30 kids in the class told us that their dream was to be YouTubers when they grew up, and they were all obsessed with Minecraft.

So we actually made a podcast about Minecraft and we played it for these guys at the end, and you could see. All of their faces just light up when they heard this. And you could tell they were just like itching to show their parents and their brothers and sisters and, and it was super cool. 

Clip: Minecraft is a game developed by Mojang in 2007. It was originally called Cavecraft. They developed it to include redstone creations where you can create stuff. 

Jeff Umbro: You're now bringing me back to that moment, which I haven't thought of in five years.

Lynn Kestin Sessler: You're welcome.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah.

Lynn Kestin Sessler: Yeah, so I have a pilot that I've done for a series like that that I think would be amazing and my co-producers like have friends and that's the one thing about working in this business, right? You meet people along the way that inspire you and you think like, oh, that rap star, he's pretty cool. Or that basketball player, she's amazing. You know, she could really inspire the next generation. 

But it's not just those, like, those are like the flashiest of the jobs. It's the people, like the recording engineers or basketball scout. You know, people who go out there or the casting directors or, you know, there's a lot of jobs that you just don't even know exist if you're a kid.

Jeff Umbro: I actually think we're gonna see a lot more of that. It used to be the most common thing in the world that 30% of your graduating class would go into some kind of OC tech profession. And now that is just not the case. And you know, a lot of people just don't even know they exist. And that all is really innate based on what we consume when we're children.

So I love that idea.

Lynn Kestin Sessler: When I was a producer at HBO, I produced a show called 30 by 30: Kid Flicks.

Jeff Umbro: I love that.

Lynn Kestin Sessler: It was pretty amazing. Yeah, it was films and animations made by kids. And then we would do these fun wraparounds with different filmmakers who would like show how to do like sound design or lighting design or how to direct things.

And we did it in a funny way so kids, you know, would laugh but also learn. And then it was a great showcase for kids to show their films and their animations and you know, be great to do something like that in the audio space, I think. Right? Kids are really, they've got, you know, it doesn't take that much money to get mics, get, you know, a good recording system and you can go to town.

Jeff Umbro: What unique opportunities do podcasts offer for children's programming that you cannot get with like digital and TV?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: It's a great place for imagination to grow, right? I think when you're watching a TV show, you're really just focused on the pictures and everything that's going on. When you are listening to a deeply sound driven emotional kind of story or place, you are taken to a different dimension really. You're taking a kid on a journey into their imagination, because what I hear is probably different in my mind than what you hear, Jeff, like what you're imagining a place to be.

You know, if you're on a royal questing adventure in the countryside and there's a princess in distress or whatnot, you know, a ribbiting frog next to her. That would be different in my mind probably than what is in your minds. But they're equally important and equally real. And so the audio scape space is just a beautiful way for kids' imaginations to grow and flourish.

Jeff Umbro: How can media networks justify investing in kids podcasts when presumably TV and digital still dominate?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: I think you have to look at podcasts as content strategy and a place to launch IP. It's also where you have a very important touch for kids to reach and interact with their favorite characters, and you gotta be in all the places that kids are. And audio, of course, is one of them. It's also a magnificent way to start an IP.

It's also happening in the grownup space, right? Think of all of these TV and film series that are starting from a podcast space, that is absolutely true here. I mean, we've done a lot of things where my audio podcasts will inspire a YouTube series or some of the YouTube series will spark an audio series that we can just develop more and go more deeply into. Play in all the spaces that kids and families are playing.

And so audio is a very important and growing piece of that pie.

Jeff Umbro: One thing that we didn't touch on that a friend of mine mentioned to me they were working on was actually merchandising for a kids' podcast, which like I had never even thought of before. It's brilliant. It's just an extension of what you're talking about. Do any of the folks that you've worked with in the past, you know, Nick, PBS, Sesame Street, or anything like that, are they ever building any kind of merchandise that comes from the audio?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: My friends who do Wow in the World, the Tinkercast folks, they are doing all the things. They're making toys, they're making books, they're doing live events, they're doing merch. They have clubs. They're also doing things in classrooms, and we haven't actually talked about that piece of it, but that I think is an important part of it as well is you can create content that is used in schools, in classrooms, and that's another potential revenue source for all of these podcasts, or at least the ones that have a little bit of an educational bent.

Jeff Umbro: So how do you measure the success of a children's podcast? Are there metrics that you pay extra attention to?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: There are metrics, there's the downloads, there's the streams. That's one way people talking about it is another way. You know, awards are nice. We've been very lucky in that space, but one of our podcasts that just premiered two months ago, we talked a little bit about it, the Paw Patrol podcast, it made it to the top 10 of all the kids and family podcasts that are out on Apple.

So word does spread and so that's pretty exciting. People, you know, talk about it, they feel it. The reviews and all of that are important and we're doing a lot of cross creation where we're starting shows on audio that, they are clever enough and have enough traction that they become YouTube shows or vice versa, a YouTube series or becoming audio series, and that is another, I would say, metric of success.

If it's got enough views on YouTube or enough passion, that is conversation that's happening off of either side of it, that's a win-win.

Jeff Umbro: Are there any challenges when it comes to scaling children's podcasting? Is it like a long-term business strategy?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: I would say there are a lot of challenges. It's such a new business, really. I mean, podcasting itself is relatively new as a business. I mean, people have been making stuff and putting it out there for a while, but the kids' piece of it has started to grow and is growing with a lot of velocity, but it's new and we have to figure out how to monetize it in ways that are meaningful to keep it going, I think in terms of a business. I think if you look at it as a marketing piece or a content strategy or like a place to spark a new show or a new IP, that's fantastic. If you're talking about it in terms of making a lot of money. I think you have to think about the different revenue streams, the books, the live events, the merch that can come from it, ways to get it into the classroom and all of that sort of thing.

There are a lot of shows that are out there or coming out all the times. You have to figure out how to get the SEO working in your favor and the algorithm. You gotta become best friends with the YouTube Kids of it all and work with really smart people to get it to rise above the fray.

Jeff Umbro: It's so funny 'cause that, I mean, we're talking about kids podcasting, but this can apply to every single podcast.

Lynn Kestin Sessler: Definitely true. Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. So final question. Where do you see kids podcasting as an industry in five years?

Lynn Kestin Sessler: I think in five years, kid podcasting is just gonna continue to explode. Parents are getting more and more frustrated with their kids just zoning out, looking at screens, playing video games and all of that. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I love all that stuff, but the audio of it all is gonna be more precious and more important.

And I think that books, those kind of things are gonna be really important. It's just keep kids' minds growing. I think parents are gonna lean into the podcast of it all and use it more for routine times, use it more for in the car when they come home from school so that kids aren't just zoning out to a box, they're listening, they're exploring, they're using their imaginations to keep their brains growing.

Jeff Umbro: I love that so much. Well, thank you Lynn, so much for coming on. This was awesome.

Lynn Kestin Sessler: It's been my pleasure. So good to talk to you. Thanks, Jeff.

Jeff Umbro: Thank you so much to Lynn for joining us. If you're interested in learning more, you can find her on LinkedIn at Lynn Kestin Sessler.

For more podcast related news, info, and takes, you can follow me on LinkedIn at Jeff Umbro. Podcast Perspectives is a production of The Podglomerate.

If you're looking for help producing, marketing, or monetizing your podcast, you can find us at Podglomerate.com. Shoot us an email at listen@thepodglomerate.com, or follow us on all socials at @podglomeratepods. 

This episode was produced by Chris Boniello, and myself, Jeff Umbro. This episode was edited and mixed by José Roman. And thank you to our marketing team, Joni Deutsch, Madison Richards, Morgan Swift, Annabella Pena, and Perri Gross. And a special thank you to Dan Christo. 

Thank you for listening and I'll catch you all in a few weeks.