As Canadian broadcasters continue banking on preschool TV series to build audiences, Corus Entertainment’s Treehouse has ordered a third cycle of the This is… franchise from co-producers Sinking Ship Entertainment and marblemedia, while the CBC has commissioned a new local version of the popular British preschool series Bookaboo (pictured).

Two new hosts will be attached to the third season of This is?, which got off the ground with the popular This is Daniel Cook and This is Emily Yeung series.

Production begins this summer on 52 seven-minute episodes of This is…, with a tentative fall 2013 launch on Treehouse.

Each episode of This Is… features a preschool host exploring and sharing new-found knowledge with other kids.

Elsewhere, FremantleMedia Enterprises has hammered out two Canadian deals for a new version of Bookaboo, an award-winning preschool series that aired on commercial broadcaster CiTV in Britain.

Happy Films, the original series’ producer, will partner with Montreal-based Cite Amerique to co-produce 28 11-minute episodes of a new Bookaboo series for CiTV/ITV and CBC in Canada.

The second deal is a format agreement in which Radio-Canada and TFO have ordered 26 x 11-minute eps of Bookaboo in the French language.

Bookaboo combines puppetry, live action and CGI animation, and the new Canadian version of the show will feature Canadian celebrities, authors and illustrators urging young TV viewers to share books at home.

From Playback online.