BabyFirst, a Commercial-Free Educational TV Channel for Babies and Toddlers Launches on Sky TV on Channel 627

London, 26 February 2007 BabyFirst offers UK parents a whole new world of innovative and educational television for babies from six months to toddlers up to three years of age. Launched today exclusively on Sky on channel 627, BabyFirst is available as part of Kids Mix on Sky TV and is 24/7 and commercial free.

With content supervised by leading experts in child development, education and psychology, BabyFirst provides a safe and enjoyable co-viewing experience for both parents and their children with programming that is designed to enhance baby’s development in an educational and engaging way.

BabyFirst is also an interactive educational tool for parents, helping them bond and engage their infants and toddlers. BabyFirst helps foster baby and children’s learning skills such as numbers, letters, animals, colours, sign language and music.  

Programme content

The channel offers different original content according to the time of day – programmes engage and delight during the day time, while evening and night-time shows with their lullaby music and soothing images are designed to prepare children for bed and nap time. Each month hundreds of hours of programming are available and new episodes and programmes are added on a regular basis.

BabyFirst created its flower logo as a useful programming tool for parents. The logo is divided into seven colour-coded petals or segments each with different educational angles. The logo petals change colours to highlight the nature of the programme content being viewed:

• Yellow Flower/Thinking Journey – stimulates creative thinking
• Blue Flower/Numbers Parade – develops math skills
• Green Flower/Sensory Wonderland – fosters sensory development
• Red Flower/Language Playground – enhances language development
• Orange Flower/Feelings Garden – enhances social skills
• Pink Flower/Imagination Lane - engages creative play
• Multi-Colored Flower/Rainbow Dreams – provides soothing images and lullabies to aid sleep

BabyFirst Advisory Board

The channel’s content is supervised and supported by the BabyFirst Advisory Board. This is a worldwide panel of experts in child development ranging from paediatricians to child psychologists and parenting experts. The BabyFirst Advisory Board has developed a Parents’ Manual that highlights specific parental guidelines for balanced viewing for babies and toddlers and is available for download on the Parents section of www.babyfirstchannel.co.uk

Board member and child psychologist Dr Richard Woolfson, who is based in the UK, says: “We know from research and from everyday parenting experience that high-quality child-centred television programmes can enrich a child’s life and can provide access to an exciting range of learning opportunities.”

Richard continues, “Co-viewing, however, is a key factor in making your child’s television viewing successful. By sharing the television watching with your baby or toddler, you can monitor exactly what she watches, you can manage the amount of viewing, you can encourage and prompt her learning more effectively while viewing and you can provide her with after-programme activities to supplement what she saw on screen. And then there’s the emotional bonus of sharing with her”.

Programming Highlights

The dozens of colourful, fun and imaginative programmes include:

• Hide and Seek – watching Squirrels Sammy and Eva find their acorns can help to develop a child’s thinking process and identify patterns. The repetition of key words also enhances a child’s vocabulary

• Bonnie Bear – with his best friend Mr Gramaphone, Bonnie demonstrates how we can correlate visuals with the sound of everyday objects. Bonnie encourages children to use their ears and hands and bring together sounds and colours to create a beautiful picture

• Tillie Knock Knock – be introduced to the wonderful world of animals through sound by guessing who is ‘knocking at Tillie’s door’. The programme encourages children to learn key words and develop a creative way of thinking about the world 

• I Can Sign – using sign language the programme enables children to effectively communicate their needs long before they can speak “proper” words. The action of ‘signing’ also enables parents and babies to bond

Parents can find more information about the channel’s programming at www.babyfirstchannel.co.uk. For more information about the Kids Mix package on Sky TV visit sky.com.                                                                              

For more information please contact Lyndsey Gordon or Emily Keogh on 020 7309 1000

Lyndsey.gordon@uk.ogilvypr.com

Emily.keogh@uk.ogilvypr.com