The Muppets of Plaza Sesamo

The Muppets of Plaza Sesamo and Mexican celebrities are addressing the new flu emergency in a series of pubic service announcements (PSA) aimed at kids.  Sesame Workshop and Mexico's Grupo Televisa have produced four PSAs featuring the Plaza Sesamo Muppet's Pancho and Lola as well as celebrities Lucero, Jorge Poza and Adrian Uribe, which empower kids with things they can do during this period.  The PSAs, which have already begun airing on Televisa, encourage kids to tell a parent if you feel sick, and if you are sick don't go to school or outside, cover your mouth with a tissue or arm if you sneeze or cough and throw away that tissue in a covered trash can, and of course, wash your hands with soap and water several times a day for at least 20 second.  Plaza Sesamo's Education and Research team worked with Mexico's Ministry of Health to develop the PSA scripts.  The PSAs are being offered to several government organizations to extend the message in Mexico including the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the Government Workers ' Social Security and Services Institute (el ISSSTE) and Mexico City's public transit system.

Kids news

Cartoon Network celebrates the final episodes of its animated series, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, as part of a six-hour Foster's marathon of five episodes, including the series finale, Goodbye to Bloo, this Sunday, May 3, 1-7p.  The marathon begins with favorite Foster's episodes 1-4:30p, with the final premiere episodes debuting back-to-back from 4:30p.  Created by animator Craig McCracken (The Powerpuff Girls), Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (78x30, 3 feature-length specials) premiered on Cartoon Network on August 13, 2004.

Nickelodeon launches season three of The Wonder Pets! with a week of new episodes, Monday-Friday, May 18-22 at 10:30a.  The premiere week features special guest appearances by the late Eartha Kitt and jazz singer Jon Hendricks, and the Friday episode celebrates 100 rescues including visits from animals saved by the Wonder Pets.  The new season also includes guest appearances from the likes of Lauren Bacall and Ben Vereen.  The Wonder Pets! is produced by Little Airplane Productions.  Nick Jr. will roll out content from The Wonder Pets! season three premiere week across various platforms, including Nick Jr. Video, with clips made available on various wireless carriers, as well as episodes available throughout May via Nickelodeon on Demand.  Additionally, all of the week's episodes will be simulcast on Nickelodeon Mobile.

Edebe Audiovisuall

Edebe Audiovisual completes new agreements for its K4-8 aimed series Edebits.  Picking up the ecology-based show are RAI SAT (Italy), which is dubbed the series into Italian, Thai PBS (Thailand pubcaster) and TRT (Turkey).  Edebits revolves around a young girl named Bet, who lives in the Antarctica with her parents, and explores the ways people can use technology to help solve environmental issues including climate change, sea pollution among others.  Co-produced by RTVE (Spain), Grupo Edebe and Tiburon de Animacion in a mix of 2D and 3D animation, Edebits is currently airing in Spain on TVE's La2.

The Wiggles

Preschoolers get to do more than just dance and sing with The Wiggles as the group launches its first interactive online world WiggleTime .com.  The site is created specifically for preschoolers and their adults, and provides kids with an introduction to the internet in a safe environment and where they can play developmental games and watch video clips.  Parents can find parenting information and updates, including a monthly report about their child's progress on the site.  The site can be played for free, but a premium service is also available with monthly subscription (about US$6, up to four kids per account), including a plan where $1.50/month is donated to UNICEF, which allows the sub access into a special area and game.

Power Moms

Nielsen Online identified an interesting new online category: Power Moms, a group of Moms who collectively make up 19% of the total online population who increasingly turn to the web to network, learn and provide information and advice to other parents. Among the top 10 sites ranked by unique viewer composition percent in February 2009, eight featured predominantly kid's programming, indicating that moms are seemingly keeping up on what their kids watch and play online, as many of these sites also offer games and/or activities.
 
Top 10 Online Destinations for "Power Moms" by Unique Viewer Composition Percent
Site                   Unique Viewer          Unique Viewers (000)
                    Composition Percent           
PBS Kids                24.5%                     241,000
Noggin                   22.2%                     121,000
Nick Jr.                  21.7%                     492,000
Playhouse Disney    20.7%                     199,000
Kohl's                    18.3%                      203,000
Disney.com            17.8%                      710,000
PBS                       17.4%                      125,000
DisneyChannel.com17.2%                      689,000
Nick                      16.2%                      415,000
Source: Nielsen Online VideoCensus, Feb. 2009
Women 24-54 with at least one child in the household, sites with a min. of 100k unique visitors

Gator Group

Gator Group, a new licensing agency, including product design and development, manufacturing and marketing, opens its doors.  Founded by a group of former execs from global marketing services agency, Cresta, Gator Group's client list includes Paul Frank Industries and the newly launched Tales 4 Tomorrow ( www.tales4tomorrow.com ), the latter of which was created in partnership with Conservation International.  With headquarters in Dana Point, California, Gator Group also has offices in LA, Paris and Hong Kong.

Dr. Helen Boehm is named as an advisor to the US Department of Education, where she will assist in the development of the Ready-to-Learn kid's video initiative for preschool and elementary school students.  Boehm also continues to write and consult on kids' media and certify educational programming content at www.FCCReady.com .

Zoo Factor

CBBC acquires the new comedy series Zoo Factor (13x20) from Welsh indie producer Calon TV (Hana's Helpline).  Targeted to K8-10, Zoo Factor will debut in fall 2009.  Described as a Britain's Got Talent-style puppet show featuring animal contestants that share their personal stories and then show off their unusual talent to Clive - a lazy and vain lion, Barry  a gaff-prone monkey, and Carmel  an indecisive chameleon.  Contestants voted off are eaten by Clive.  Calon holds the distribution rights for the show.

Noonbory

Cookie Jar Entertainment completes deals for two of its preschool series for the UK and Ireland for air in 2009. TG4 (Ireland) acquires Noonbory and the Super 7 (26x30), while Will & Dewitt (26x30) goes to Tiny Pop (UK).