It’s the end of an era for two British free-to-air kids channels: POP and Tiny POP.

London-based owner Narrative Entertainment is sunsetting both the linear nets at the end of the year, along with the POP Player app. But the brand’s FAST channels will remain up-and-running in the UK and internationally.

Narrative already shut down its POP Max channel earlier this year. Acknowledging this latest closure, MD Paul Dunthorne opened up about how difficult it is to keep kidsnets afloat in the current state of the market.

“We understand the importance of offering high-quality kids TV, and we’ve done everything that we can to maintain POP,” he said in a statement yesterday. “But free-to-air channels for this audience are simply not commercially viable without public service broadcaster-style funding.”

Dunthorne cited data (pictured below) from UK ratings tracker Barb, which estimates that commercial value in the UK kids TV market today is just 4% of what it was in 2016. 

Source: BARB, TV set viewing (7 day consolidated), Kids 4-15, 2016-Sep 2025, commercial impacts among kids commercial channels (POP Kids, Paramount Kids & Milkshake!, Warner Kids, CITV, Disney).

The closure is just another sign of continued downturn in the UK kids TV industry, which has recently seen other leading kids content platforms shut down linear channels and shift away from commissioning. 

POP’s FAST channels are unaffected because they “continue to offer commercial opportunities,” Dunthorne explained.

POP (aimed at six- to 10-year-olds) and preschool net Tiny POP first launched in 2003, both operating with an acquisitions-heavy content strategy. POP picked up titles like the Barbie franchise (pictured), Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir, Dragon Ball Super, Totally Spies!, Pokémon and Unicorn Academy. And Tiny POP airs shows like Strawberry Shortcake, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Maya the Bee, Postman Pat, Fraggle Rock and The Smurfs.