Tiny Pop
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2014) |
| Ownership | |
|---|---|
| Owner | Sony Pictures Television |
Tiny Pop is a free-to-air children's television channel in the United Kingdom, owned by CSC Media Group, a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Television. Broadcast on many of the major digital television platforms in the UK, its target audience is children aged 7 and under .[1] The station broadcasts principally animated content sourced from various distributors.
History
Tiny Pop is a sister channel to Pop, which was launched on 29 May 2003. Tiny Pop is a replacement for the retired station Pop Plus, which was originally a secondary channel of Pop. Tiny Pop is aimed at a very young audience (similar to CBeebies).
As with other CSC channels, on-screen presenters are rarely used: programmes are introduced either by caption and voiceover alone, or through animated characters. For a time during the mid-2000s (decade), a group of animated monkeys, known as the Cheeky Monkeys, would talk about cartoons, read out jokes from viewers and show artwork; from the end of June 2009, they were replaced with 3 new hosts, Molly, Leo and Pip (who are also monkeys).
Tiny Pop initially broadcast on satellite TV - Sky (now channel 617) from the channel's launch, and Freesat (channel 605) from the launch of the platform in 2008.
On 11 October 2007, Tiny Pop was launched on Virgin Media, along with its sister channel Pop. Pop was removed in 2011, but was brought back on 25 August 2016. The station has also been made available over other cable systems.
On 14 July 2016, Tiny Pop +1 was replaced by Pop Max. The channel aired back-to-back episodes of a show from POP. Pop Max closed on 1 December 2016, and reverted to Tiny Pop +1, the stations timeshift service. However, the channel reverted back into Pop Max on 9 February 2017, but was re-replaced with Tiny Pop +1 on 25 April 2017.
Freeview
On 23 October 2014, Tiny Pop was launched on Freeview, running daily from 3 pm to 7 pm in a slot timeshared with the Community Channel. On 7 January 2015, Tiny Pop was launched fully on DTT and as from 15 March 2017, is now broadcast 24 hours a day on Freeview. Round-the-clock service continues on satellite and cable.
Prior to January 2015, the channel had broadcast billed programmes from 0600 to 2230, teleshopping content from 2230 to 0130, and a 'Through the Night' programming block from 0130 to 0600. From 1 January 2015, the schedule changed to run billed content from 0600 to 0000, with 'Through the Night' for the remaining six hours, with the teleshopping block dropped; sister channel POP had also removed its prior teleshopping block ahead of its move onto Freeview. Also sister channel Pop shown Tiny Pop programmes on their channel, until February 2015.
On 15 March 2017, Tiny Pop changed its service on Freeview, moving to the Local Television multiplexes across the UK, meaning that the channel is only available on Freeview where a local television service (i.e Made in Cardiff) is broadcast.[2]
References
- ^ "Tiny Pop". CSC Media Group. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
- ^ "Tiny Pop available on Local Freeview channel 126". TinyPop.com. Retrieved 15 March 2017.
