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Netflix beefs up preschool slate

CMC: Netflix has added three original animated series to its line-up of children’s programming as the growing interest in kids’ content among OTT players shows no sign of slowing down.

True & the Rainbow Kingdom

True & the Rainbow Kingdom

Netflix has commissioned a spate of children’s series recently to give it the edge over its US subscription VoD rival Amazon, which is also stepping up its focus on children’s commissions, whilst putting pressure on the major US players Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

Targeting what it calls “curious” preschoolers and their parents, the new Netflix series include 13-episode series Kazoops!, from Australia’s Cheeky Little. It will premiere in the second half of 2016 and launch on ABC in Australia and the BBC in the UK at a later date.

It follows a young boy and the family pet pig as they try to answer questions about the world, while its CGI animation style draws on traditional claymation and 2D graphic art.

The series marks the second time Netflix has worked with the BBC on a new children’s series, after the pair joined forces on a CGI-animated comedy based on the classic Australian children’s book series from the 1970s, Bottersnikes and Gumbles (52×11′).

The Jim Henson Company’s Word Party (26×11′), meanwhile, is a vocabulary building show that follows four baby animals as they sing, dance and play.

Word Party

Word Party arrives on Netflix next year

The show, due to arrive on Netflix around the world next year, lets young viewers help teach the baby animals new words and learn these new words themselves.

It is produced using the Henson Digital Puppetry Studio, which allows puppeteers to perform digitally animated characters in real time. This enables the animation to appear more lifelike and spontaneous.

Finally, True & the Rainbow Kingdom (10×22′) is a comedy-adventure series for preschoolers from Canada’s Guru Studio, Bill Schultz’s Home Plate Entertainment and Pharrell Williams’ record label i am OTHER.

The series follows a bright and resilient girl in the lead role alongside her feline best friend as they use ingenuity and creative thinking to solve problems big and small. It will premiere on Netflix globally in 2017 and launch in Canada at a later date.

Among the recent original commissions and exclusive acquisitions Netflix has made in the children’s genre are Irish toon Puffin Rock, Cirque du Soleil’s Luna Petunia and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and Jane.

The latter comes from 41 Entertainment and exec producer Avi Arad of Arad Animation, with whom Netflix is already working on a cartoon series based on the story of King Kong.

The series will be available in Netflix’s dedicated section for kids aged 12 and under, alongside acquired fare from the likes of Disney Channel, PBS, Mattel, Hasbro and Lego.

The company has a lucrative content deal with DreamWorks Animation that will see the Shrek producer create 14 animated series, each at least three seasons long and totalling 300 hours of content, for the SVoD platform before 2017.

The latest commissions follow the announcement earlier this week that European pay TV giant Sky is recruiting its first head of children’s content to lead its push into the genre, which is being spearheaded by an OTT app that will offer kids’ series on-demand.

Sky revealed a “multimillion-pound” investment in children’s programming and increased the number of episodes it offers from 700 to 4,000 in June.

These new players are clamouring to capitalise on children’s changing viewing habits, as the demographic continues to switch off from linear, scheduled TV in favour of online viewing via catch-up and SVoD services as well as YouTube.

The role of OTT services in children’s media content will be a major talking point amongst delegates here at the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield, which kicks off today and runs until Friday.

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