KiKa – Kids

KiKa airs daily from 06.00 to 21.00, providing a mix of original and acquired children’s programming from both local and international markets.

KiKa’s best ratings so far this year have been generated by Yakari, a KiKa-commissioned cartoon about a young native American boy and his friends, which comes from France’s Storimage-Mediatoon, ARD and its affiliate WDR. “It reached nearly one million kids aged 3-13, so it’s no surprise that we’ve decided to go for another season,” says Sebastian Debertin, head of fiction, acquisitions and coproductions.

For its preschool strand Kikaninchen, which is hosted by a blue bunny-like character, Chloe’s Closet (aka Zoé’s Zauberschrank) has scored the highest ratings among 3-5s, picking up an average 67.1% market share.

“Interestingly, Chloe also ranks extremely high with kids 6-8 and older,” says Debertin. In June, it was the channel’s second most-watched show among kids after Unser Sandmännchen (The Sandman), the channel’s daily 10-minute strand at 18.50, which helps to signpost bedtime for younger kids and generates shares of up to 50%.

A second 52-episode season of Chloe’s Closet has been ordered from French-US studio Moonscoop. Season one was also the number two show aired via on-demand platform KiKa Plus.

Other high-rating series across demographics earlier this summer included Jim Knopf (Jim Button), which scored an overall 38.9% share among 3-13s on June 6, and Mein Freundin Conni (My Friend Conni), which reached nearly 40% on June 20.

Next year, KiKa will launch a number of new internationally acquired toons, including The Cat In the Hat Knows a Lot About That from Portfolio Entertainment, plus Muddle Earth (BBC Worldwide), Mouk (Millimages), Florrie’s Dragon (Studio 100), The Green Squad (Gaumont-Alphanim) and Abbie’s Flying Fairy School (Sesame Workshop). All are being dubbed and adapted for the new season.

Live-action on the channel, according to Debertin, comes in “very authentic” forms. These include award-winning TV movie strand Krimi.de, which comes from local prodco Kinderfilm; ZDF-Jonathan Schiff Productions drama copros H2O and Alien Surf Girls; and non-fiction docusoaps such as Die Jungs-WG (Flat Sharing Boys). The latter, which sees teenage boys living for periods without parental control, is “very attractive to German kids.”

The channel has also acquired an Australian series, Jigsaw Entertainment’s You’re Skitting Me (13×24′), which follows Guess How Much I Love You – The Adventures of Nutbrown Hare, its animated coproduction with SLR Productions, Singapre’s Scrawl Studios and ARD-owned HR.

Live-action series You’re Skitting Me sees six Aussie teenagers performing sketches that mix characters, monologues, parodies and animation. According to Ruprecht Joos, commissioning editor at the children’s department of Bayerischer Rundfunk, a Bavarian affialiate of ARD, the series has its “finger on the pulse” of KiKa’s young audience.

More new series from ZDF and ARD across a variety of genres are set to launch on KiKa later this year, adds Debertin.

Multi-platform
KiKa’s on-demand platform KiKa Plus is accessible through the Kika.de website and targets three main age groups: 3-5s, 6-9s and 10-plus.

“The KiKa on-demand offer already has fantastic user figures and there has been no cannibalising between it and the TV channel. This is obviously because you can watch your favourite shows whenever you feel the time is right, including between 21.00 and 06.00 when the KiKa channel is not on,” says Debertin.

“Figures show that although kids aged 10-plus love to use the on-demand offer after hours, the typical user of KiKa Plus is a preschooler and their parents. They’re watching shows like Chloe’s Closet or the claymation remake of Ernie and Bert in really large numbers.”

However, KiKa Plus remains hampered by government regulations that allows only content commissioned or coproduced by public broadcasters to air on the platform. “Media politics in Germany limits public television in an unfair way – much too much for my taste,” says Debertin.