Complete content ownership is one of the keys to kids brand ducktv’s success, says Iza Piotrowska, director of affiliate sales and business development at Slovakia’s Mega Max Media.

Iza Piotrowska

Ducktv, owned by Slovakian independent media company Mega Max Media, prides itself on its carefully curated content for the early years age group.

Launched as a linear channel in 2007, it is, according to Mega Max Media’s director of affiliate sales and business development Iza Piotrowska, “aimed at a very specific demographic, children aged six months to four years.” She adds that its brand mission is to “offer content that is safe, engaging and very carefully curated,” with “everything that we develop and produce crafted under the supervision of child psychologists because, of course, our viewers represent a vulnerable demographic.”

Piotrowska stresses it is “very important for us that the content is very engaging but is not addictive, which is a difficult balance to strike, especially with kids’ content.”

The most popular programmes on the channel, which are almost all animation-based, include the long-running Lola & the Numbers, along with Ducky Adventures, with the latter having “brought the ducktv brand figure to life only three years ago,” says Piotrowska. “We now have three seasons of Ducky that represent and cover different educational values, from developing social skills to teaching toddlers how to handle their emotions and adjust in new situations – the arrival of younger siblings, for example.”

Other titles include Toby McFly, Planet Jumpers, Mimo & Bobo, and the newest one, My Pet Family, which premiered in November and teaches children that animals should be “respected, loved and protected.”

Ducktv is distributed by major pay TV platforms, telcos and operators such as A1 Telekom Austria Group, United Group, Orange, Vodafone, Digi, M7 Group, Deutsche Telekom and Swisscom. Furthermore, its content is available on OTT platforms, streaming services and cable TV.

Piotrowska adds: “Although pay TV is still our core business, we also launched a ducktv FAST [free, ad-supported streaming TV] channel a while ago to align with the latest distribution methods and technological advancements, but also in pursuit of new revenue streams.

Ducktv shows include My Pet Family

“FAST has opened doors to new territories without impacting our pay TV business in existing markets, because we are trying to be very selective with the territories where our FAST channel is available.”

This number is certainly growing, and the exec is “very proud to say the FAST channel is now available on Samsung TV Plus, which is the market leader in 15 territories all over the world, including the US, Europe, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand.”

Given the fact the channel is also distributed on several other platforms, including LG Channels, Rakuten, Sling and Netgem, it is now available in 30 markets. Moreover, Piotrowska says: “We have a lot of new upcoming FAST launches in the pipeline, including with big telcos in Italy and South Africa.”

She is keen to point out that ducktv also has several upcoming launches on pay TV. “So it’s not only FAST where we see the growth, our pay TV is also growing. A bit slower, obviously, than a few years ago, but we still close pay TV deals.”

This, no doubt, has helped ducktv as a brand to reach more than 180 million households in over 150 countries.

When it comes to talking to clients, Piotrowska notes that they look for content that is safe and where there is “strong demand for educational programming.” Indeed, she says: “Our clients are looking for content that combines learning and entertainment, whether it’s learning a language or programming that promote social and emotional development.”

She has also noticed that children are increasingly consuming content on digital platforms rather than traditional TV. Furthermore, content is now becoming shorter, which reflects shortened attention spans. Taking this into account, the shows on ducktv are very short, typically around three minutes long.

The Ducky Adventures series “brought the ducktv brand figure to life”

In addition, Piotrowska stresses that ducktv produces its content in-house and it is “very important for us to own our IP.” She adds: “We own the rights to our content, which means that we can do whatever we want with it. Our content is available as a pay TV channel, as a FAST channel and is available as VoD. We license our content to streaming platforms, and we also license it to third-party kids’ channels.”

Looking to the future, she thinks ducktv will stick to its flagship offering, which is directed at small kids and babies. However, she says: “We’re definitely working on new programming. Every year we have new titles and we have some new, exciting titles in the pipeline that we are developing and I’m sure they’ll be popular with our audience.”

In terms of growth, she says the company is working on establishing new business in new territories, specifically Latin America and Asia.” This is being done with the help of “great local distribution partners” and Piotrowska says she is “very excited” about this expansion.

For Piotrowska, an important aspect of ducktv is that, aside from some basic English words, representing around 10% of its content, it is non-dialogue. “This language-free approach makes it very easy to bring the content to anywhere in the world, literally out of the box. No other organisation can do that,” she says.

Alongside this, she points to the major transformation the company has undergone in the past five years, “shifting from the traditional app-free linear pay TV model” to one that is “very versatile” and a “content powerhouse.” It has an agnostic distribution approach and has embraced new revenue streams such as AVoD, SVoD and direct content sales to third parties. Interestingly, it has even adopted the unconventional approach of partnering with airlines for distribution.

All this has affected its revenue, which a few years ago was derived solely from traditional linear pay TV distribution but now sees 30% obtained from other sources.

For Piotrowska, having the rights to content and being able to align it to new distribution methods is particularly important for ducktv and key to its future. The company has grown so much in the last few years its content is now available “basically everywhere,” she says.