There are three giant global players in children’s television: Disney, Viacom (Nickelodeon) and Turner (Cartoon Network). Over the next few months there will be a fourth in the shape of KidsCo, very much the “new kid on the block” but proving that even in a massively crowded genre like children’s TV a savvy entrant can find a profitable market.

KidsCo is truly the new baby. Founded originally by Canada’s Corus/Nelvana, DiC Ent (now part of Cookie Jar Ent.) and UK-based Sparrowhawk Media Group in April 2007. NBC-U bought out Sparrowhawk at the end of last year. KidsCo’s first channels went on air in September 2007.

CEO is Paul Robinson, well known to the industry from his time at Disney, who explains that his channel is now on air in many central and Eastern European countries plus Turkey, as well as the Philippines, Mid-East, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia and elsewhere (Thailand has just been added, see separate story). KidsCo is also in German negotiations with Premiere and KDG and already has distribution with one major German cabler.

“Our big MIPCOM news is that we’re launching in Germany this month on Unity Cable which has just passed 1 million subs. As far as the UK and France are concerned, we are at an advanced stage of negotiations, and I’d hope to see us launch in those two markets soon in 2009.

“As far as Italy is concerned I’d hope that we could launch during the first half of 2009. Western Europe is a much more advanced market, where by and large the platforms have consolidated, and where the players now have a lot of muscle in their countries. Timing is also an issue. They already have what they consider to be lots of channels which means you cannot just go and launch as an individual broadcaster, and so you have to join the queue.”

Robinson said that in Asia and especially in Eastern Europe there are still plenty of rival platforms operating in the same territory thereby making it somewhat easier to get on air. “Seven in Romania, and five in Poland, for example. In Italy you have just one shot, and there’s no cable. So getting a channel on a player like Sky Italia is a longer, slower operation than it might be in Romania!”

KidsCo sees itself as having a unique proposition for kids viewing. Robinson: “We’ve gone first for the lower-hanging fruit in order to get some traction, building up distribution which leads to some advertising which means cash coming into the business. We have massively grown our distribution in Asia and Eastern Europe and have lots more to do in those regions as well as closer to home. We are still very much on target to be in most Western European market by next year. We are already in Spain, and we expect to be in Portugal early next year, probably on TV Cabo.”

Robinson explains that France, following the merger between Canal Plus and TPS is now a more difficult market to enter as far as DTH is concerned. “This means we are likely to be launching in France on a combination of cable and IPTV,” and said that Orange’s Neuf and Numericable platforms were high on his hit list. “Add France’s IPTV distribution onto Numericable and you have very decent distribution. Naturally I’d hope that one day we can do a deal with Canal Plus, but if we don’t we will still have a very good business out of cable and IPTV, and the NBC-U relationship helps.”

Next on KidsCo agenda is long-form movies, where Robinson and his team will draw on the experience of sister channel Hallmark in providing safe, “family” viewing.

Source: Rapid TV News 2008

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