London-based edtech company Sandbox Group is expanding beyond educational apps with the launch of its PlayKids TV FAST channel, which has just been picked up by telecom Netgem TV. 

Netgem’s internet service provider partners including TalkTalk TV, Community Fibre TV and Better TV have already started carrying the 24-hour channel in the UK and Ireland. Users in those territories who download the Netgem TV app on their phones or smart TVs will see Playkids TV available in Netgem’s kids hub. 

At launch, the free channel’s library was comprised of about 20 hours of original programming from Sandbox’s affiliated companies, including preschool SVOD Hopster, but also licensed titles such as Talking Tom & Friends (Oufit7), Earth to Luna (TV PinGuim) and The Hive (Lupus Films). According to Ben Pugh, Sandbox Group’s head of partnerships, the plan is to acquire rights to more content from the global marketplace to keep Playkids TV fresh and engaging. 

Building ROI in the FAST universe is a challenging proposition because advertisers, who are still spending most of their budgets on linear TV, haven’t yet migrated in great enough numbers to monetize these new channels, Pugh says. So Sandbox has built a few differentiators into its model. For example, the lineup runs slow-paced animation during the later evening hours—instead of churning through premium content—because there’s little viewership in that time period, when most family households are winding kids down for bedtime. 

Some FAST first-timers make the mistake of thinking they just can dump their whole library into the channel and watch revenue pour in, says Pugh. But that’s not a model that works. Instead, PlayKids TV is heavily curated with blocks of focused programming, like songs about animals and arts & crafts, for example. Special schedules will also be built to tie into major events in kids’ lives, such as back-to-school, summer holidays and Christmas. 

Plus, as added value to content partners and in order to make programming breaks a little more interesting in lieu of advertising spots, the channel is currently featuring customized branded artwork for the shows in its lineup on screen with messaging that the episode will resume shortly. 

“[Advertisers] are not diversifying their spend a lot, but as FAST gradually comes to the forefront, it’s becoming increasingly important to have a product strategy for it that makes sense,” says Pugh. 

Testing new streams of business is also a priority right now for the whole edtech sector, which got a bit of a wake-up call when Paramount announced in February that it was shutting down its popular SVOD Noggin, Pugh says. If even Nickelodeon’s venerable service wasn’t safe from the whims of the market, then Sandbox can’t assume that its suite of educational apps alone will always drive business. 

“It’s not exactly an arms race to see which companies can fill the gap left by Noggin,” says Pugh. “But it is obvious that we need to diversify, and FAST is a strong new way of getting our content to kids.”