France - French nets take battle online

TF1 serves up more programming outside of its primary kids block with Tfou Web TV

The goal: To maintain TF1 block Tfou's leading 31% share of children ages four to 10, its fall slate is taking viewers on a trip around the world (and the galaxy) with co-pros and acquisitions that will hopefully follow in the footsteps of current top comedy and adventure draws such as SpongeBob SquarePants and Totally Spies!

Fall hopefuls: Serving the upper end of Tfou's six- to 10-year-old demo is 26 x 26-minute action co-pro Inami, with Belgium's RTBF, Mediatoon and producers Seahorse-Anim and Ellipsanime. The series focuses on a young boy facing the dangers of the Amazon rainforest. Dominique Poussier, head of children's at TF1, says she picked up the series to expose her demographic to different cultures and landscapes, while also helping kid viewers understand the necessity of environmental conservation. (The subject is something of a hot-button topic in France right now.)

Younger kids will get to travel from the comfort of their couch, too. Nickelodeon's Ni-Hao Kai Lan (13 x 26 minutes) bowed on the net last month and introduces the four to sixes to Chinese culture. Poussier anticipates the show will entertain kids in an interactive mode reminiscent of Dora the Explorer, which happens to be one of the top shows on the net right now. The Nick show should benefit from playing right after another top preschool draw, Disney's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She adds that Ni-Hao will help viewers prepare for the future, alluding to the belief that China will be the next economic superpower.

Extraterrestrial online strategy: Heading outside of Earth's atmosphere, TF1 is taking an adrenaline-filled journey with co-pro Monster Buster Club from Marathon Media. The action-comedy debuted on cablenet Jetix Europe earlier this summer, and bridges SpongeBob and Inami on Wednesdays. TF1 has also co-produced an MBC virtual world that launched on the website in September. Poussier says games are the main draw in the online universe, but Tfou Web TV is starting to make waves outside of the kids blocks. "We are not a children's channel, so we really use our website to reach out to kids outside of our block times," she says.

To lure eyeballs away from its cablenet competition beyond Tfou's regular broadcast hours, Tfou Web TV targets the six to 10 set via a 60-minute online after-school block starting at 5 p.m. and repeating at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. "As we acquire more programs for online, it will shift to a 1.5-hour block that will run twice," says Poussier.

A sneak-peek at '09: Growing Web TV is a significant part of Poussier's vision for 2009 and beyond. She's staying with action-comedies, and casting her co-production net outside of France, looking to potential Canadian and American co-pro partners to create both half-hour formats and shorts. Whether across the pond or in France, co-productions will need to have an online component to be considered, and she'll be looking to secure online video rights to pump up Tfou Web TV's video player.