As Paramount Global gears up for new ownership under a Skydance Media merger deal, its UK subsidiary 5 is envisioning a new era for its platforms, including the Milkshake! strand that targets two- to five-year-olds (occasionally skewing up to age seven). 

Since launching in 1997, this programming block has been a UK preschool favorite—and its reach has only broadened since Louise Bucknole took charge in 2018. She became SVP of kids & family at Paramount UK/Ireland in January.

Louise Bucknole

Last year, Milkshake! cornered an 11.3% average share of the UK’s four- to 15-year-old audience (Barb/TechEdge), and viewing for its content on the My5 platform increased by 24% compared to 2023. In order to capitalize on this growth, Channel 5 revamped this year as part of a rebrand to simply 5—with expanded offerings that include a Milkshake! FAST channel and a recent strategy of uploading select full-length episodes on YouTube. “Kids now watch content in more places than before and don’t necessarily have brand loyalty, so we’ve become more agile in sharing our content,” says Bucknole. “We make sure it’s available everywhere kids are.” 

What is Milkshake! looking for?
Bucknole is currently seeking slapstick comedy concepts and nature-inspired edutainment—an evergreen category for the block that includes her recent commission of Aneeshwar’s Outdoor Adventures (20 x 11 minutes) from MCC Media. “We aim to be flexible with rights and work with [nimble] funding models,” adds Bucknole. “This includes co-productions, accessing regional funding and collaborating with multiple partners.”

Milkshake! typically allocates 80% of its annual spend to commissions and 20% to pick-ups, though this split can vary from year to year. To diversify its acquisitions, Bucknole is looking to license more international shows (on average, 30% are UK-produced), noting that titles like Oggy Oggy from France and Ukrainian/Spanish co-pro Brave Bunnies are strong performers.

Five-, seven- and 11-minute episodes are ideal, and in terms of volume, Milkshake! prefers 20 to 25 live-action eps per season, and either 26 or 52 animated episodes. Bucknole cautions that she’s not seeking shorts that are under three minutes long, since Mikshake!’s in-house team produces those. She’s also not looking to buy original movies due to their “low repeatability” on a linear schedule, but she’s open to this format if it’s based on an existing title in the Milkshake! catalogue.

Tim Rex is Space is the first global co-pro from Milkshake! and Nickelodeon, and Bucknole is looking to replicate this collaborative model.

PAW Patrol ranked as the top-performing IP on Milkshake! last year (with the flagship series and spinoff Rubble and Crew together driving a quarter of all annual viewership), followed by Peppa Pig, Milo, The Adventures of Paddington and Pip and Posy. 

Coming up next
A 2D-animated family series is in early development and will be announced later this year, Bucknole teases. In the meantime, Mint Copenhagen’s 2D-animated Tim Rex in Space (60 x eight minutes) is set to launch in May. Also joining the lineup that month is Treehouse (30 x seven minutes, featured image) from RD Content. And then Jellyfish Originals/Jollywise Media’s CG-animated series Stan & Gran (52 x 11 minutes) is slated to premiere in July, coinciding with the release of Aneeshwar’s Outdoor Adventures. 

This story originally appeared in Kidscreen‘s Q2 2025 magazine issue.