European pay-TV giant Sky is continuing to ramp up its original kid-friendly offerings with more commissioned content and enhanced features for its Sky Kids app.
The new greenlit series include kid-friendly versions of Sky 1 science panel show Duck Quacks Don’t Echo (pictured) and wildlife documentary series Big Cats, An Amazing Animal Family.
Magnum Media-produced Duck Quacks Don’t Echo: Kids will combine science, facts and wild experiments, while Big Cats, An Amazing Animal Family from Offspring Films will bring natural history storytelling to a younger audience.
The broadcaster is also planning to develop child-friendly programming from Sky Sports, as well as short-form content from leading online multi-channel networks (MCNs) that include nursery rhymes and music.
The new commissions add to Sky’s previously announced original series featuring Aardman Animations’ character Morph. Sky will premiere new episodes of Morph beginning this fall, along with new Aardman-produced short features that encourage kids to create their own characters and films at home. Morph will sit alongside Sky’s existing selection of more than 4,500 episodes of kids shows from nets like Nick Jr., Boomerang, CBeebies and Cartoon Network.
Sky’s kids programming is currently available on demand, through the NOW TV Kids Pass or via the Sky Kids app. Launched in March, more than 13 million episodes of kids shows have been watched via the app. It now features a Sleep Mode setting, which gives parents the ability to limit viewing time, and it will enable offline viewing later this month.
Available for Android and Apple devices, the app has widened its reach to Germany and Austria, and it will be rolled out in Italy at the beginning of 2017.