《经济学人》双语：父母担心孩子们沉溺于短视频内容，怎么破？

原文标题：
Entertainment
No child’s play
Streaming giants get more serious about children’s shows
娱乐
绝非易事
流媒体巨头对于儿童节目越发重视

A cost-effective way to expand your subscriber base
一个高性价比的扩大订阅量的方法

[Paragraph 1]
THE PANDEMIC has been tough for parents of young children.
疫情对有幼儿的父母来说是件难事。

With schools shut, many had to keep an eye on their offspring while juggling chores and remote work.
由于学校停课，许多人不得不一边照看孩子，一边忙着做家务和远程工作。

Succour came courtesy of Hollywood.
好莱坞对此提供了些帮助。

A study by Parrot Analytics, a data firm, found that demand for children’s shows in America—measured by video views, social-media mentions, searches on IMDB, a platform for film buffs, and the like—grew by nearly 60% from the start of 2020, before covid-19 hit, to last September (see chart).
数据公司Parrot Analytics的一项研究发现，从2020年初新冠肺炎疫情爆发前到去年9月，美国对儿童节目的需求——通过视频浏览量、社交媒体提及量、电影爱好者平台IMDB的搜索量等类似指标衡量——增长了近60%(见图表)。

Demand for other genres rose by 23% in that period.
对其他类别的需求量在此期间增长了23%。

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At the same time, parental concerns about their progeny’s media diets have grown.
与此同时，父母对子女的媒体摄取内容越来越担心。

A recent Pew survey found nearly half of parents saying that YouTube, the most popular destination for young audiences, exposed their children to inappropriate content.
皮尤最近的一项调查发现，近一半的父母表示，年轻观众最喜欢的网站油管让他们的孩子接触到不合适的内容。

Many are chary of social-media apps such as TikTok, one-third of whose users may be under the age of 14, according to internal data seen by the New York Times.
据纽约时报内部数据显示，很多家长对于TikTok这样的社交软件很谨慎，TikTok超过三分之一的用户都在14岁以下。

[Paragraph 3]
Fortunately, help is at hand. Disney, arguably the child-friendliest brand of all, has created a new role tasked with seeking out external children’s programming—part of a reorganisation to separate content creation from merchandising.
幸运的是，帮助近在咫尺。迪士尼可以说是所有品牌中最适合儿童的，它创造了一个新岗位，即负责寻找外部儿童节目——这是将内容创作与商品销售分离，是重组的一部分。

Paramount+ is promoting its Nickelodeon trove to parents. Its own parent, Viacom CBS, is reportedly in talks to buy the “Alvin and the Chipmunks” franchise from its creators for as much as $300m.
派拉蒙+正在向家长们推广他们的宝藏品牌Nickelodeon。它的母公司维亚康姆哥伦比亚广播公司，据说正在谈判，打算用3亿美金向《鼠来宝》创作者买下其经销权。

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In September Netflix paid more than $700m for the Roald Dahl Story Company, which owns the rights to the eponymous author’s beloved tales such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.
9月，网飞斥资7亿多美元收购了罗尔德?达尔故事公司，该公司拥有这位同名作家深受喜爱的小说《查理和巧克力工厂》的版权。

In November it announced the launch of Kids Clips, which offers curated short videos from its expanding slate of children’s programmes.
11月，网飞宣布推出Kids Clips, 提供从其不断扩大的儿童节目列表中精选出来的短视频。

Last autumn HBO Max, best-known for edgy grown-up fare, launched Cartoonito, a portal dedicated to pre-school shows.
去年秋天，以前卫的成人节目而闻名的HBO Max推出了Cartoonito，这是一个致力于学龄前节目的门户网站。

[Paragraph 5]
Upstarts are getting in on the action, too.
新秀也开始摩拳擦掌。

Kidoodle. TV, an ad-supported app that specialises in children’s shows, has seen its downloads balloon during the pandemic.
Kidoodle.TV是一款专注于儿童节目并靠广告维持的应用程序，在疫情期间下载量激增。

In November two former Disney executives agreed to pay $3bn for Moonbug Entertainment, the company behind hit programmes like “Cocomelon” and “Blippi”.
11月，两名迪士尼前高管同意斥资30亿美元收购Moonbug娱乐公司，这家公司制作了《Cocomelon》和《布利皮》等热门节目。

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Youth programming is attractive to streaming services for several reasons.
儿童节目对流媒体服务构成吸引力有几个原因。

Children’s television shows, especially animated ones, often cost less to produce than entertainment for adults, observes Erin Meyers of Oakland University.
奥克兰大学的艾琳·迈尔斯观察称，儿童电视节目，特别是动画片，比成年人节目制作成本更低。

They tend to have a longer shelf life, too, since young children are less fussy than older viewers about what is hip at any given moment.
因为小孩子在任何时候都不会像年长的观众那样挑剔什么是流行的，所以动画片的适用期也更长。

And children’s programming offers vast merchandising opportunities in the form of toys.
儿童节目以玩具的形式提供了巨大的商品销售机会。

Most important, if you get it right you may be rewarded twice over: with current custom from grateful parents and, if their offspring like what they see, a guaranteed stream of future viewers.
最重要的是，如果你做得到位，你可能会得到双倍的奖励：如果他们的孩子喜欢这些节目，那么这些充满感激的家长现在的光顾也是未来观众的保障。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量508左右）
原文出自：2022年1月8日《The Economist》Business版块。
精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路
本文翻译整理：Fei Min
本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来源于百科）

【重点句子】（3个）

At the same time, parental concerns about their progeny’s media diets have grown.
与此同时，父母对子女的媒体摄取内容越来越担心。

Upstarts are getting in on the action, too.
新秀也开始摩拳擦掌。

And children’s programming offers vast merchandising opportunities in the form of toys.
儿童节目以玩具的形式提供了巨大的商品销售机会。

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