Category: Kids

Focusing on the best new UK music the show has no studio base and will be filmed at outside locations across the country. Sound will be fast-paced, showcasing the most exciting new music while mixing up live performances and interviews across a variety of genres.

A new drama Falcon Beach also launches on 20 October. The show revolves around the lives of central characters Jason, Paige, Tanya and Lane in the beautiful sun-soaked town of Falcon Beach. This is an addictive coming-of-age drama about teenagers, their passions, relationships, friends, families and enemies. In India the show airs on Star World.

BBC Radio 1 will launch a five hour teen slot on Sunday nights. Annie Mac will host a new show (7-10pm) and new Radio 1 signing Kelly Osbourne fronts Radio 1‘s Surgery (10pm-midnight).

BBC Switch online launches on 14 October. The site is an online portal for teens to access content across the BBC services they love, including Radio 1, 1Xtra, Slink, Blast, EastEnders and:

Signs Of Life is an online interactive drama. It is the biggest commission of its kind and consists of eight episodes. Players move between watching the drama unfold and interacting with the plot. The adventure follows Daisy, her jealous boyfriend Joe, and Joe‘s mysterious father Max and is a mix of drama, games and psychological tests centring on astrological events in an English village. The emotional themes of each episode are further explored via interactive personality tests. Players can save and share the results of the personality test as widgets that appear on their own social networking page.

Them– This is a web guide to the “tribes” that exist within the UK today, informed by the young people that belong to them. The Surgery is a source of information for teenagers about personal issues such as relationships, puberty and health. The site is written for girls and boys aged 12 to 16 and is also the primary online destination for Radio 1 listeners in need of advice. Slink is an online magazine for girls aged 12 to 16. Full of entertainment, chat and advice.

The site is a safe and friendly place for girls to be themselves, watch interviews with their favourite stars, play games, get vocal about the issues affecting their lives and, with help from Slink‘s panel of experts, confront their problems from acne to exams.

BBC Vision director Jana Bennett said, “I am incredibly proud of the work being done by Andy Pariftt and his team, it is great to have this project as part of BBC Vision. BBC Switch reflects exactly the way we want to work within Vision, bringing together content and programming in a way that feels natural to our audience. These initiatives announced today work in a completely complementary way and bring innovative programming to a very important audience.”

Radio 1, 1Xtra and BBC Switch controller Andy Parfitt said, “This is a big step in delivering the vision that was set out in Creative Futures. The BBC connects with young children in a very significant way, but when they reach their secondary school years this relationship is not as strong.

“Our aim is to make distinctive and powerful content 12 to 16 year olds can embrace and, through our work with BBC Vision, Radio 1 and online, I feel we are achieving that. We‘ve worked hard to really get to know this audience and the insights we have collected are at the heart of everything we will do.

“This announcement completes a wide range of changes and initiatives across which all deliver this October – together they give us a great opportunity to build the BBC‘s relationship with younger audiences,” he said.

BBC Switch head Geoffrey Goodwin said, “We have aimed to create high quality, innovative content across multiple platforms, particularly concentrating on the digital sphere. It is clear to us that storytelling is important to our audience and we have developed new narrative formats online such as the successful Wannabees and now Signs Of Life. It is of utmost importance that we deliver to young people a truly 360 degree experience with this content.”

The channel is on the lookout for kids oozing with confidence, creativity, onscreen presence, and more importantly they should have a funny bone in them. Reliance Web World has been roped in as a real broadband partner.

Whilst out of the sixteen cities that the channel will audition kids from; four (Delhi – 20 & 21 August, Mumbai – 13 & 14 August, Kolkata 6 & 7 August and Bangalore – 30 & 31 July) will have ground auditions and the kids from the rest 12 cities (Hyderabad, Cochin, Chennai, Coimbatore, Amravati, Kolhapur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vijaywada, Allahabad, Jaipur and Amritsar) will give their auditions through the Reliance Web Worlds‘ video conference in their cities. Judges will interact live and audition the kids from Mumbai‘s Reliance Web Worlds. This is the first time that any kids‘ network will be using virtual technology.

In the end, six kids (three boys and three girls) in the age group 7 – 14 will be chosen and will get an opportunity to host a show on Cartoon Network.

Vivek Krishnani

“Join The Powerpuff Generation is one of the key Cartoon Network marketing initiatives for the year 2005. As the number one kids‘ channel of India, we are constantly raising the industry bar and evolving our strategies to accommodate the changing needs of Indian kids. This innovative marketing initiative will add another dimension that will set standards with its effective roll out using cutting edge technology – by introducing the concept of virtual auditions. These will ensure that no matter where they are, kids can participate in join the Powerpuff Generation through virtual auditions,” said Cartoon Network and POGO director marketing Vivek Krishnani.

Reliance WebWorld marketing head Sunil Buch said, “The superpower of Cartoon Network has joined hands with the superpower of Reliance Infocomm because of the great synergy between Cartoon Network‘s target audience and Reliance Web World Real Broadband applications and product offerings. These include applications like Multiplayer Online Coming and products like Digital Parties, Little Genius and Digital Imaging. As their Real Broadband partner we are not only providing an all India retail network of new age digital outlets for promoting and inviting registrations from new age kids but also offer a unique opportunity to host auditions in remote locations using the video conferencing facility at Reliance Web World.”

Starting 27 June, kids can enter the contest by submitting an entry form describing, “Which Super Power They Want” The entry forms can be downloaded from the channel‘s website – www.cartoonnetworkindia.com or collected from any Reliance Web World outlets. The entry forms will also be distributed through a six city school contact programme, reaching more than 350,000 children from over 450 schools. The last date for entries is 31 July, 2005.

From the entries received, 1000 kids each will be auditioned in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore between 30 July and 26 August. In addition, 50 children each will be selected from the other 12 cities. The short listed contestants will be called for virtual auditions in their respective cities from 1 – 21 August.

The channel has roped in Cadbury and Camlin as the presenting sponsors for ‘Join The Powerpuff Generation‘, whereas Kissan, Reynolds, Parrys, Parle G, Horlicks and Kelloggs are the co sponsors.

Krishnani said that the event will be backed by on-air, online, on-ground and off-air promotions, thus creating multiple touch points for kids. “Our promise is to reach out to the maximum number of kids and give them an opportunity to be a part of this mega initiative. We are reaching them through our network, which has a presence in 22 million households, through school contact activities and through our off air communication which will touch almost five million kids through kids magazines and supplements. The promotional activities will run through out the next couple of months until the show goes on air. Also our branding presence will be there across all Reliance Web World outlets.”

Queried as to when the new show with the six kids as hosts was likely to go on air, Krishnani informs, “The auditions will finish by the third week of August and by the first week of September we will have our winners‘ shortlist. So immediately thereafter, we will get on to the network with the shows.”

Cartoon Network enjoyed a good run this summer, wherein the channel aired the Harry Potter movies and other shows on the ‘Thunda Funda‘ block. Cartoon Network and Pogo, at present account for 82 per cent of the kids‘ pie. “As the market keeps growing, with competition coming in, we will be doing different and innovative things and raising the industry bar to try and carve out a larger share of the pie.”