German family channel Super RTL will launch its second channel on June 4, 2016: Toggo plus will show Super RTL’s children’s programme strand Toggo time-shifted by one hour.
At Super RTL, the Toggo block will in future commence at 05.00 instead of 06.00 CET and end at the usual time of 20.15 CET. Toggo plus will show the identical programme strand including commercials from 06.00 CET – until 21.15 CET. In an additional hour, the channel will air children’s series until 22.15 CET. Afterwards, infomercials will be shown overnight, a Super RTL spokesman told Broadband TV News.
The second channel enables Super RTL to draw level with its competitors KiKA and Nickelodeon which also screen children’s programmes after 20.15 CET. On its main channel, Super RTL can continue to target an adult audience from 20.15 CET.
“With the new channel and the additional airtime, we can provide our young viewers with more offerings without them having to leave the Toggo cosmos,” Super RTL’s programme director Carsten Göttel said in Cologne.
The German anti-media concentration commission KEK approved the new channel in February 2016. The media authorities’ licencing and supervision commission ZAK gave the green light and issued a 10-year broadcast licence at its latest assembly on March 15, 2016 in Berlin.
Toggo plus which will be distributed on all major satellite and cable platforms is the first time-shift channel in Germany’s free-to-air TV market. On pay-TV platforms, there are already several ‘plus one’ channels, for example Sky Atlantic HD+1 or Sky Cinema+1.
Super RTL wanted to launch a second channel in 2005 und was granted a broadcast licence for the pay-TV service dubbed Toggolino TV by the media authorities, but the project never materialised.
