Milkshake!

World Screen Weekly,
September 4, 2008

COUNTRY: U.K.

LAUNCH DATE: Milkshake! launched as a branded block on Five in
1997, and on Five Life, which has now been renamed FIVER, in 2006.

OWNERSHIP: Fully owned by the RTL Group.

DISTRIBUTION: Fiver is a free-to-air network across the U.K.,
found on Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media and Tiscali.

DESCRIPTION: The preschool block features a host of well-known
brands, mixing a large proportion of original productions with a smaller number
of acquisitions.

SENIOR MANAGEMENT

Director, Children’s
Programs: Nick Wilson

Children’s Programming
Coordinator: Jessica Symmons

Associate Producer: Clair Duff

Business Affairs
Executive: Adam Sutcliffe

PROGRAMMING STRATEGY: The British kids’ programming block features some
of the best-known and most-beloved preschool brands on the market today: Noddy, Rupert the Bear, Mr. Men, Fireman Sam and Thomas
the Tank Engine, among others, and
has been doing so for more than a decade.

Aimed at 2- to
7-year-olds, Milkshake! airs on
Five weekdays and Sundays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 10
a.m. and now on Saturdays and Sundays on digital channel FIVER between 6 a.m.
and 11:45 a.m. In the British kids’ landscape, Milkshake!’s “place in the spectrum is squarely in the
middle,” says Nick Wilson, the director of children’s programs at Five. The
destination, he notes, is seen as “direct, entertaining and British.” CBeebies,
by contrast, skews “younger, with a strong BBC flavor,” while Nick Jr. “is seen
as older, edgier and American.”

The programs within Milkshake! are “presented in a…non-patronizing and engaging
manner,” with programming aimed to “enrich, entertain and stimulate its young
audience and never harm them,” says Wilson.

When filling its schedule,
the block “looks first at a program’s entertainment value, the strength and
quality of its story, to what degree the program will draw in its young
audience,” Wilson explains. “Then, at the value of the content, that it is
accurate and safe, and then at the ‘message,’ which generally will be subtle
and understated.”

Independent of any single
supplier, Milkshake! picks up
content from a variety of sources, but is buying “less and less off the shelf
each year,” with only around 25 percent of its schedule consisting of
acquisitions. The rest are originals for the block. For the year, Milkshake! will commission or co-produce 600-plus new program
episodes, spread over more than 20 separate series and involving more than 16
different production companies, with a total of 150-plus hours of new first-run
programming. “This is more first-run programming than CBeebies,” Wilson points
out.

Top performers on the
block are Chorion’s The Mr. Men Show and Make Way for Noddy,
CCI’s Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs, Entertainment Rights’ Rupert Bear: Follow the
Magic and HIT’s Fireman Sam and Thomas and Friends. Other notable shows airing within Milkshake! are Fifi and the Flowertots and Roary the Racing Car, from Chapmen Entertainment, Peppa Pig, Little Princess and The Adventures of Bottletop Bill and His
Best Friend Corky.

WHAT’S NEW: The channel’s companion website is “basic” and “simple
to navigate,” Wilson says, pointing out that, as of now, it is “lacking depth
of content.” This is why “major redevelopment” is planned for the fourth quarter
of this year for Milkshake!’s
web-based offerings.

Programming highlights in
the months to come include new seasons of Noddy, Little Princess, Roary,
Fifi and Bottletop Bill, along with new series set to debut such as The
Great Adventures of Bert and Ernie,
a claymation property produced with Sesame Workshop, and Chorion’s Olivia, based on the bestselling book property.

WEBSITE: www.five.tv/programmes/milkshake

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski