ITVX Kids set for summer launch
David Farnor | On 12, Mar 2023
ITV is upping its kids’ entertainment this summer with the launch of ITX Kids.
The dedicated destination for children on its streaming platform will boast more content than ever before, across a range of titles appealing to both school ages and preschool ages. Launching in July 2023, and rolling out across the school summer holiday period, the new consolidated children’s offering will also see ITV take its approach to 6-12s content, streaming-only, from early Autumn 2023.
BARB viewing data demonstrates that while the average amount of broadcast TV minutes of kids’ TV channels watched by 4-15 year olds per week has declined by 62 per cent since 2019, unmatched viewing has risen by 30 per cent in the same period, demonstrating the streaming-first trend in kids viewing. The Kids ITVX homepage, accessed within a child-safe ITVX Kids profile, will bring together over 100 brilliant titles in a dedicated homepage, with over 1,000 hours of programming to choose from – a near doubling of the current offer.
The curated collections will feature a wide range of titles, including brand new programmes dropping monthly on the service, from July 2023. This will span a range of genres and subjects, including comedy, gameshows, live action, animation and sport and sourced from a broad spectrum of distributors from small independents to regional UK suppliers.
The new shows will complement existing favourites, including Lloyd of the Flies, Lily’s Driftwood Bay, Claude, Mumfie, Mystery Lane and The Rubbish World of Dave Spud, which will also be available on ITVX Kids. Brand new episodes of The Rubbish World of Dave Spud have been commissioned for broadcast in 2024 and they will premiere on ITVX.
ITVX Kids will also have some much-loved British brands, including the animated series of Mr Bean, and for younger pre-school children, TeleTubbies Let’s Go, Sooty and Bob The Builder amongst other titles.
Commissions that ITV was able to greenlight, thanks to funding from the BFI Young Audiences Content Fund – which ran until 2022 – will also appear on ITVX Kids. These include sustainable arts and craft series Makeaway Takeaway, HOW, highlighting amazing facts, science and historical stories in a fun, fast paced, hands on format, The Sound Collector an animated series narrated by Keira Knightley, about a little boy who has a passion for sound despite being hard of hearing and Happy The Hoglet – which helps pre-schoolers navigate those big emotional rollercoasters that comes with being young.
Accessibility for all children who want to enjoy content is a big priority for ITVX. The ambition is for 100 per cent of content to be subtitled on ITVX Kids, with about 20 per cent of the content on ITVX Kids audio described, and the offering will also include British Sign Language original programming such as Mission Employable and Daremaster, produced by Signpost productions.
As a consequence of this new streaming approach, and responding to the changing ways children and their parents are increasingly accessing content, the CITV broadcast channel will close in early Autumn. However, ITV will maintain the LittleBe pre-school segment on ITVBe and will offer some children’s content in the early mornings on ITV2 from September with strong cross-promotion to ITVX.
Craig Morris, Managing Editor of ITVX said: “We’re really excited to launch this dedicated destination for kids on ITVX, which will be home to a wealth of content including new series, recognisable brands and existing favourites for a range of ages, all in one child-safe area, with editorial curation to guide viewing. The wealth of content will be available to stream for free, with the option for parents to choose ad free viewing, through a subscription to ITVX Premium.”