From a media release:
At the annual international Kidscreen Summit, CBC/Radio-Canada President and CEO Catherine Tait today announced the public broadcaster’s expanded commitment to serve a wider range of young audiences in Canada, including acquired content and new original French and English-language programming from Canadian creators for CBC Kids and Radio-Canada Jeunesse. The public broadcaster’s goal is to double the amount of content for young audiences on the CBC Gem streaming service over the next year to match the amount of content already available on ICI TOU.TV.
As a leader in serving young children, with one of Canada’s most-watched English-language preschool services on weekday and weekend mornings, CBC Kids is now looking to reach school-aged and tween audiences with new programming. With a focus on live-action scripted series for the 6-12 and tween demographics, new original programming includes tween action-adventure series DETENTION ADVENTURE (10×11, LoCo Motion Pictures and Broken Compass Films). This is CBC’s first original kids scripted series for CBC Gem and will premiere this spring. Following the recent launch of CBC Kids News, CBC is also building on its commitment to serve young Canadians with trustworthy content with the greenlight of LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX (35×5, Echo Media), the English-language version of On parle de sexe, which will provide tweens with age-appropriate information on healthy sexuality. It will premiere as the first original factual series for kids on CBC Gem in 2020. CBC Kids is nominated for 10 Kidscreen Awards this year.
These new series are part of CBC’s goal to double the amount of kids’ digital content available on CBC Gem over the next year. This commitment includes acquired content from Canadian and international distributors, with the streaming service currently offering more than 200 hours of advertising-free programming for young Canadians.
Already a leader in children’s programming in the French market, having doubled its offer on ICI TOU.TV et ICI TOU.TV EXTRA this past year, Radio-Canada Jeunesse will increase its short-form content offer for the tween and teenage groups and strengthen its 360-degree platform approach for successful brands. New original programming launching this year includes two fiction series for the 13-17 age group: NOMADES (10×10, Trio Orange) and AVEC MOI (10×10, Attraction Images). Also set to launch this year is a new magazine style production called 14 MILLE MILLIONS DE CHOSES À SAVOIR (35×15’, KOTV), introducing young audiences to some incredible star power, such as Pierre-Luc Funk, Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais, Gabrielle Fontaine and Anna Beaupré Malounda.
CBC/Radio-Canada will also continue to explore national and international partnerships to tell Canadian stories on a more significant scale and share them with audiences around the world. Examples of some new partnerships include tween sci-fi action adventure ENDLINGS (12×30; Sinking Ship Entertainment for CBC/Radio-Canada, Hulu, NDR, CBBC, ABC Australia, Universal Kids US, NRK, SVT) and MOLLY OF DENALI (38×30; Atomic Cartoons for CBC Kids, WGBH, PBS), an animated series for young children that tells the story of a 10-year-old Indigenous girl and shines a spotlight on Indigenous storytelling and perspectives.
Continuing to build on its amazing success across all of our platforms, L’AGENT JEAN (40×90’’, Happy Camper Media) is back with new episodes in French and English, in partnership with TFO and CBC Kids. Also launching in the fall, is a new live action fiction series for the 4 to 7 age group, in addition to another upcoming live action fiction series for the same age group.
CBC/Radio-Canada’s expanded programming for kids is part of our commitment to provide Canadian parents with a trustworthy digital platform where they can find safe, high-quality, educational and entertaining content for their children.
