Providing services aimed specifically at children is becoming increasingly important for broadcasters in Central and Eastern Europe.
While we are still some way from the situation that exists in such mature markets as the UK, where just this week Amazon launched a new subscription service named Fire for Kids Unlimited, many stations in the region already have kids channels in their portfolios.
Take Slovakia, which though a small-sized market is also one of the most dynamic. This January, the national commercial broadcaster Joj TV launched RiK, the country’s first local language kids channel, in a licensing partnership with Germany’s Your Family Entertainment.
It now plans to shortly launch a second, this time in partnership with Slovak Telekom, that will be distributed exclusively on the latter’s Magio TV and Magio Sat services.
Meanwhile in the Czech Republic, Barrandov TV added to its growing portfolio last month by launching Barrandov Plus, a channel that offers kids programming in the daytime and documentaries in the evening.
Elsewhere, the Polish public broadcaster TVP launched a children’s channel named TVP ABC last year. So, to, did RTL in Croatia, giving a debut to RTL Kockica, though in its case children’s programming was limited to mornings.
While international children’s channels are commonplace in Central and Eastern Europe, locally produced ones are still relatively rare. Both are nevertheless becoming more prominent in the overall TV landscape.
Earlier this year, Nielsen Audience Measurement produced audience share figures for Wirtualne Media in Poland for September 1, 2014 to February 24, 2015, looking specifically at viewers aged 4-15.
They showed that children’s channels accounted for 10 of the top 20 channels watched by the group in question, with Nickelodeon, the most popular, in third place overall and claiming a share of 5.40%. Interestingly, the least watched was the HD version of Nickelodeon, with 1.29%, while the most popular channels overall were Polsat (12.14%) and TVN (10.23%).
A similar picture probably exists in other large CEE markets, indicating the importance and indeed potential of children’s channels.
