Though it’s been championing content for kids with deafness and hearing loss for a while now, BBC Children’s and Education has now commissioned the live-action series Tiny Tunes, the first CBeebies program to feature deaf kids.

Flashing Lights Media, based in Kent, England, produced this 30-episode series where a host presents classic nursery rhymes and songs through music and British Sign Language (BSL) to a group of kids who are deaf or have varying levels of hearing loss, as well as some hearing kids. The series is available starting today (April 28)—National BSL Day—on iPlayer, and CBeebies will roll it out on May 4.

The 30 episodes for the BBC are five minutes each, and there are an additional 20 two-minute episodes for the Beeb’s YouTube channels. The YouTube episodes include some simple animations, and teach kids signs for common words like lemons and oranges, Flashing Lights Media’s creative director Emma Glassar tells Kidscreen.

The prodco is a deaf-led indie that has produced children’s programs for the BBC such as Magic Hands: Black History Songs and Magic Hands: Christmas Special, where adults use sign language and songs to teach kids about Black history and the holidays, respectively. Flashing Lights saw an opportunity to build on the legacy of those programs, while also creating a milestone for the BBC’s kids programming by putting deaf kids on the screen, too, says Glassar.

It was also important to showcase that there’s a spectrum to deafness, she notes. To do this, the studio made sure there were kids on the series who can speak, as well as some who can’t. Importantly, the show’s host, Lisa Kelly, who is deaf and has a deaf accent, speaks and sings in the series, too, to showcase this diversity.

Flashing Lights is also developing other children’s series, and it’s looking to spotlight British Sign Language and the deaf community in more content, she notes.

There’s a decent-sized audience for kids programming like this series, with the National Deaf Children’s Society estimating there are more than 53,000 deaf children and young people in the UK. That number might not seem large on its own, but the show also has potential to reach deaf parents and a wider audience, since more than 18 million adults in the UK are deaf, according to UK hearing loss charity RNID.

Beyond its BBC programming, the studio has also made kids shows for LumoTV, a British broadcaster/commissioner focused on entertainment for deaf viewers, including Crafty Champions and the educational series OMGenius. 

The BBC hailed the representation milestone in a release. “Tiny Tunes is a genuinely important program for CBeebies, and the deaf community,” said Kate Morton, CBeebies’ senior head of children’s commissioning 0-6. “It’s the first time we’ve had deaf children on screen within our content, and that representation really matters, for deaf children to see themselves reflected, and for all young viewers to grow up with a broader, more inclusive understanding of the world.”

Image courtesy of Flashing Lights Media.