Buyer Profile: CSC Media Group

PREMIUM: Jay Stuart spotlights one of the best-kept secrets in the U.K. television market: CSC Media Group, a young company which has almost 15 percent of the children’s viewing market with four fast-growing kids’ channels.

CSC stands for Chart Show Channels, indicating the origins of the group in music TV, and it still operates seven music channels, plus True Movies 1 & 2 and True Entertainment, as well as the kids’ channels, which are available free of charge on the Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat platforms: Pop, Tiny Pop, Kix! and PopGirl. In fact, CSC operates more basic channels than anybody else in the market. 

The children’s channels had a children’s market share of under 5 percent in 2007. They accounted for about 14 percent of all kids in 2010, and over 20 percent of all girls. CSC Media has the only channel in the market aimed specifically at girls with PopGirl for girls aged 7-12.

The other channels are Tiny Pop for preschoolers, POP for boys and girls 4-to-9 and Kix for boys 7-to-12. Viewing across the channels was up 46 percent in 2010 from 2009.

Minute’s theory on why other groups have not followed the route of targeting girls only is that they see the glass as half-empty rather than half-full. “The bigger ones probably see a girl’s-only channel as excluding part of the audience,” he says. “We see it as being exclusively for part of the audience.”

Having a channel that is just for girls is an advantage in making acquisitions, according to Francesca Newington, the group’s head of children’s channels. “We are able to find shows that others may see as too girly,” she says.

Successful series for the young female market have included The Saddle Club and Sleepover Club. Coming up is Canadian reality series The Next Star. Newington says she is now looking for drama for tween girls.