PBS Kids is streaming more than a dozen shows online and a changing assortment of clips for Web-Savvy grade schoolers.
The 14 series on PBS Kids Go at www.pbskids.org/go/video, aimed at kids 6 to 8 years old, include “Animalia,” “Arthur,” “Cyberchase,” “Design Squad,” “Dragonflytv,” “Fetch with Ruff Ruffman,” “Kids World Sports,” “Kratts’ Creatures,” “Martha Speaks,” “Maya & Miguel,” “Postcards From Buster,” “Wishbone,” “WordGirl” and “Zoom.” The video content is also available on Web sites of participating PBS affiliates.
An updated roster of video clips from new shows, including “Robots,” “Friends” and “Gross,” will also be accessible on the site as part of an expanding archive of hundreds of clips.
The digital display is the first move in a three-year plan to make more educational video content available on the PBS Kids site. New community features, such as interactive video, and educational games kids can play while watching video clips, will be introduced on the site during the first quarter of 2009, according to PBS spokesman Kevin Dando.
“This is curriculum based content,” Dando said. “Kids are going to have fun, but the root of every decision is educational value.”
PBS plans “a very significant expansion” of the site’s video content early next year with “a mosaic of features” to manipulate that video, Dando said.
PBS was already seeing a strong user response on the site, based on a feature that encourages kids to vote for their favorite video clips. Some 700 kids had voted for the top-rated clip. The site was in a soft-launch for three days prior to its official debut yesterday.
In fact, grade schoolers’ requests to be able to view video of the PBS Kids shows partly fueled the PBS Web initiative.
The online content is likely to fuel on-air viewership for the shows, but Dando emphasized that PBS’s primary motive for the move is to make the content access ubiquitous.
“We want people to have access to this content wherever they are using media,” he said.
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