JimJam

World Screen Weekly, February 14, 2008

COUNTRIES: Italy, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal and the Netherlands

LAUNCH DATE: The Italian feed launched in 2006. Expansion into Central Europe and Western Europe began in December 2007.

OWNERSHIP: Chellomedia, the European content division of Liberty Global, and HIT Entertainment

DISTRIBUTION: More than 6 million households

DESCRIPTION: The 24-hour preschool channel first launched in Italy on the SKY Italia package. The channel was subsequently acquired by a joint venture of Chellomedia and HIT Entertainment, which are working together to expand the service worldwide. Targeting kids aged between 1 and 6, JimJam features a slate of content from the HIT catalogue, as well as third-party acquisitions.

GENERAL MANAGER: Wayne Dunsford

DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING: Kathy Fairbairn

HEAD OF ACQUISITIONS & PROGRAM PLANNING: Preena Bhatia

PROGRAMMING STRATEGY: With its target demographic of kids aged 1 to 6, JimJam is looking to offer its audience “entertaining and safe” content, according to the head of programming and acquisitions, Kathy Fairbairn. “No freaky cartoon violence or running around being naughty!” Fairbairn quips, stressing JimJam’s reliance on “charming preschool programming.”

Many of JimJam’s core properties come from the HIT Entertainment catalogue, including Barney & Friends, Bob the Builder and Thomas & Friends. Third-party fare is also on the slate, Fairbairn notes, among them the Spanish series Dougie in Disguise and the Dutch property Anton. The key, Fairbairn says, is programming that is entertaining and educational. This age group, she explains, is “learning from everything they watch. We think it’s very important that what they’re watching is also providing them with educational values.”

Fairbairn explains that JimJam’s scheduling strategy needs to be flexible, as it is a pan-territory service. “It’s a different approach than if it were a terrestrial channel. The programming is very short, 5 or 10 minutes, occasionally 15 minutes; it’s a schedule crammed full of short programs and interstitials. We move through the day but we have to be fairly fluid on that movement. Because of the different time zones we’re in, it’s a little trickier than saying, before 7 o’clock we’ll do this and after we’ll do that.”

At the heart of Fairbairn’s programming strategy is the diversity in the range of shows available: “We have the more traditional 2-D animation, but we’ll also include 3-D, costume puppets, claymation; it’s quite a variety we offer. So a child can watch something and then 5 minutes later they’ll be on a totally different style.”

The majority of JimJam’s schedule is being dubbed into local languages in each of the territories the channel is currently available in. There is, however, a section of the schedule, English Time, which introduces basic English words. “It is getting a lot of positive feedback from cable operators,” says Fairbairn.

WHAT’S NEW: The channel is scheduled to roll out in the Netherlands from the first quarter of this year with additional territories (excluding the U.S., U.K. and China) to follow. “We anticipate rolling out fairly quickly in 2008 to Africa, Portugal, Benelux, the Middle East, Russia,” Fairbairn says. “It’s an ambitious plan and we’re on target and it’s going well.”

On the programming front, “there are many exciting titles in negotiation,” Fairbairn notes.

WEBSITE: www.jimjam.tv

—By Mansha Daswani