David Farnor | On 04, May 2016

NOW is entering the children’s VOD race with the launch of a new Kids Membership.

The online streaming service, which offers subscribers contract-free access to Sky TV, has enjoyed strong growth over recent years, as adults tune in to watch Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and other shows. Now, though, VOD services are increasingly turning to children as their target audience.

Last month, BBC iPlayer unveiled its own kids app, joining child-friendly services from YouTube and Hopster to Amazon’s dedicated kids platform. Now, hot on the heels of Sky’s kids app, NOW is following suit.

The NOW Kids Membership will let kids watch six dedicated live TV channels: Nickelodeon, Nick Jr, Nicktoons, Boomerang, Cartoon Network and Cartoonito. Thousands of episodes and box sets will also be available on demand from the above channels, plus content from Milkshake!, CBeebies and CBBC.

That means kids can enjoy the likes of SpongeBob SquarePants, Paw Patrol and The Powerpuff Girls, Adventure Time and The Amazing World of Gumball, which are only available on demand to Sky and NOW customers. Later this year, they can watch Morph, following the recent news that Sky is commissioning brand new episodes of the much loved character from Oscar-winning studio, Aardman Animations.

The pass will be available to buy from the 21st June at £2.99 a month – a price that significantly undercuts both Sky’s kids offering and rivals Hopster, Amazon and DisneyLife.

The service will feature a brand new child-friendly user interface, with a space theme, picture-led navigation, a “Favourites” bar – the service learns what little ones like so they can quickly and easily access their most-loved shows – and also next episode auto-play, which means they can watch more episodes of without having to navigate back to the main menu.

Before parents have nightmares of their children binge-viewing all kinds of inappropriate content, the service also includes parental controls, such as a screen lock to prevent little fingers accidently changing shows on a mobile or tablet, an ‘escape prompt’ which stops them from exiting the UI by mistake, and a parental PIN which allows parents to set restrictions on what their children watch.

“We want to make sure that everyone in the family gets the best entertainment experience possible and that includes our younger viewers,” says Gidon Katz, Director of NOW. “We’ve created a vibrant, engaging world just for kids, so finding an episode of Dora the Explorer will be almost as fun as watching it. By creating a separate enhanced NOW Kids Membership our customers have even more choice when it comes to selecting the shows that are right for them, all with no contract.”

The launch of the NOW Kids Membership sees Nickelodeon, Nick Jr and The Disney Channel move out of the NOW Entertainment Membership, which costs £6.99 a month. From today, though, they will be replaced by a brand new channel in the package: Nat Geo Wild, which joins Sky Atlantic, FOX, Sky1 and Sky Living and other channels in the adult package, which also includes over 250 box sets.

A 7-day free trial of the kids pass will be available. For more information visit www.nowtv.com/kids.

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