Since making its on-air debut down under late last year, Australia’s first digital FTA children’s channel ABC3 has been enjoying ratings success.

According to data from WebTrends and OzTAM, the upstart kidcaster is now the top daytime channel among the five to 12 set (6 a.m. to 6 p.m.) across all FTA and subscription TV, leading with total TV share of 13.1%. Its weekly reach has increased since launch date to 1.4 million and is now reaching 29% of kids from ages five to 12.

Locally produced series have also been popular, including Prank Patrol, CJ the DJ and Rush TV. And since the launch nine weeks ago, the ABC3 website has drawn 1.3 million visits and 9.7 million page views, with traffic to the homepage also up 34% by the end of January. That’s in addition to 20,000 kids joining the kidcaster’s social network site Club 3. CJ the DJ also has the most popular new ABC3 program website.

iView has seen growth with three ABC3 programs in the top 10 most viewed shows for December, including Prank Patrol (87,000 views), Iron Man: Armored Adventures (75,000 views) and Richard Hammond’s Blast Lab (60,000 views).