The KidsCo channel, a joint venture of Sparrowhawk Media, DIC Ent. and Corus Ent.’s Nelvana Enterprises, goes on the air across five territories on Friday, Sept. 7. The channel will be broadcast by cable operators in Romania, Hungary, Russia, Turkey and Poland. Deals have also been signed in the Ukraine, where KidsCo will launch next month, and in Asia Pacific, where viewers will be able to tune in by early 2008.
KidsCo is a 24/7, multi-platform channel that will offer animated and live-action television series and feature-length movies from DIC and Nelvana, and other major children’s content suppliers including Entertainment Rights and TV-Loonland. DIC’s programming library features more than 3,000 half-hours of animation, including the hit shows Inspector Gadget, Strawberry Shortcake, Madeline, Dennis the Menace and Care Bears. Nelvana has a comparable catalog highlighted by such series as Babar, Franklin, The Adventures of Tintin and Rolie Polie Olie.
Utilizing Sparrowhawk’s state-of-the-art broadcast distribution facility in the U.S. and its international network of affiliates, KidsCo is expected to be available in up to 40 territories, including Europe and Latin America, within the next 18 months. Programming is being localized for each market and has been programmed by day-parts to create a strategic line-up targeting segmented audiences.
