Child's play: Sky's new app brings kids shows to tablets

Sky has launched its first content app outside of its core Sports offering. Sky Kids targets pre-schoolers and children up to nine years old and may be an indication of things to come at the media company.

The app, which will be available from March 31, can be used on iOS and Android tablets and comes off the back of extensive research carried out by Sky into the kids market.

About a quarter of households with Sky have one or more children and given that nearly two thirds of 5-6 year olds have their own devices, it was only logical for it to be the first in line for "vertical" apps. You need to be a Sky customer though, with a current subscription to the Sky Family bundle, Variety bundle or Sky Q.

More to come

Sky Kids is backed by a significant production budget, and it's likely to be the first of a number of other audience-targeting apps.

Already, Sky has announced it will premier new episodes of the much-loved Morph, a stop-animation hero created almost forty years ago, in partnership with Aardman Animation. The app will also get new features in the near future, allowing parents to download episodes for offline consumption.

Currently, most major channels (Nick, Boomerang, Disney, CBBC, CITV, Milkshake) are covered although not all episodes of your kids' favourite series are included.

Only a couple of episodes of the first series of Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom are included, while only a fraction of Peppa Pig's episodes are listed on the app.

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