Nick Jr. UK Announces Plans To Start To Show Brand New Episodes Of "Pocoyo" In January 2013

According to the official Sky Media Ireland websites' 'Sky TV's Children's Television Highlights In January 2013' webpage, Nickelodeon UK and Ireland's preschool channel, Nick Jr. Channel UK and Ireland, will start to premiere and show brand new episodes of the popular animated preschool show "Pocoyo" in January 2013, as part of "January on Nick Jr. UK 2013":

Pocoyo
Nick Jr

Pocoyo is a curious little boy. Him and his friends, Pato and Elly always manage to have fun together while learning lots about things like colours, animals and shapes. Join them all for brand new eps this January!

Nick Junior UK's brand new animated preschool series "Pocoyo" is set in a 3D space, with a plain white background and usually no backdrops, and is about a young boy dressed in blue, who is full of curiosity, and is narrated by Stephen Fry. In "Pocoyo", viewers are encouraged to recognise situations that Pocoyo is in, and things that are going on with or around him. The narrator usually speaks explicitly to the viewers and to the characters as well. Each character has its own distinctive dance and also a specific sound (usually from a musical instrument), and most episodes end with the characters dancing. Many episodes also involve parties.

Nick Jr. 2 UK Announces Plans To Start To Premiere Brand New Episodes Of "The Magic Roundabout" From Monday 7th January 2013

Nick Jr. UK and Ireland has announced the Nick Jr. News in a brand new promo/trailer that Nick Junior UK will start to premiere and show brand new episodes of the CGI-animated preschool show "The Magic Roundabout", which is based on the classic children's television series of the same name, on Nickelodeon UK and Ireland's second preschool channel, Nick Jr. 2, from Monday 7th January 2013 at 8.30am and 8.45am, as part of "January on Nick Jr. 2 2013".

Below is a description about Nick Jr. UK's CGI-animated preschool series "The Magic Roundabout" from the "The Magic Roundabout" show webpage on the official Nickelodeon Asia website, nick-asia.com:

The Magic Roundabout was brought to a small rural village many years ago by a strange old man, Mr Rusty. It has remained there ever since. With it came a playful, naughty magician called Zebedee who lives up in the clouds above. He spends his time creating impish tricks on the village inhabitants and watching them untangle the problems he sets.

To add to the fun, each character is wildly different in the way they view the world, yet they co-exist in happy harmony. There's Florence, a kind little girl; Dougal the grumpy dog; Ermintrude the sweet cow; Dylan the sleepy rabbit; and Brian, a rather stuffy snail.

Each episode begins with Zebedee perched on a cloud, initiating the story that's about to unfold in the village below. At the end, when all has returned to normality, Zebedee announces that it's "Time to party!". Just then, Dylan pops in and wishes it was "Time for bed!".

The Huffington Post Interviews Former Nickelodeon General Manager Paul Lindley, The Founder Of Children's Food Label "Ella's Kitchen"

Below is a interview with former Nickelodeon UK General Manager (GM) Paul Lindley which was conducted by The Huffington Post, in which he talks a bit about his time working for Nickelodeon UK:

Paul Lindley, Ella's Kitchen Founder, On How His Daughter Being A Fussy Eater Inspired His Empire

Ella's Kitchen founder Paul Lindley reveals it was his daughter being fussy about food that inspired his business
Paul Lindley founded Ella's Kitchen baby and toddler food after experiencing problems getting his eldest daughter to eat.

Sticking to his ambition of producing fun, healthy, organic food for babies and toddlers, he set himself just two years to get the product to market - and succeeded.

Here he tells us how he fell into the food market, and why it was worth remortgaging his house to bag a deal with Sainsbury's.

What were you doing before you went into kids food?

I worked at KPMG for five years and trained as a chartered accountant – I didn't enjoy it at the time, but it's helped me with the new business.

Then in the 1990s I worked in the media division and left to work for Nickelodeon in 1994. I was initially hired as the financial controller and worked my way through to being the general manager.

It was the years of the boom of the internet and the digital bubble at this time and I learned masses. There was a real entrepreneurial feel at Nickelodeon and I really enjoyed the kids programmes.

Then, in my last few years there I had two or three other ideas that I wanted to work one – one of which was Ella's Kitchen.

I rejected two ideas before I settled on Ella's Kitchen; the first was a platform that would give kids access to digital money to spend online, the second was a TV show – which I actually made a pilot for – which dealt with issues around promoting healthy food, family time and food and so on, but the interest in Ella's Kitchen soon took over.

Ella was born in 1999 and when she was between one and two years old she just stopped eating certain foods, as some kids do. But we worked out that if the food was fun, she'd try it.

How old's Ella now? How does she find the whole food label being named after her?

She's 13 years old now. She finds it really cool, and at the same time also really embarrassing.

What happened next?

I gave myself two years to get the product to market – I was determined it should be healthy and fun as the key themes. I spent almost two years playing around with nutritionists in my kitchen to find the right food.

I also wanted to focus on packaging –the brand needed to feel personal. After a year I started pitching to supermarkets – I didn't want to go for the small market route.

Sainsbury's agreed to list us in 350 stores with two of our products, right before my two-year deadline. So we had our new organic food in fun packaging and I went back to the TV channels I'd worked with to ask for free advertising slots. Thankfully, Nick Junior followed up with me and by January 2006 we'd taken off.

It started with just two products, now we have more than 80 and we're in all major retailers in 12 countries around the world.

I worked on my own for the first year and a half, then by year three I had nine people working in my house. Today, we have 54 employees in the UK and another 10 in a US subsidiary. We've currently got 10% of the baby food market in the UK, and 23% in Norway.

People's lives have become more stressful and where you’ve got two parents earning an income your time is tight.

Where did the money come from to start you off?

In the first two years I spent £20,000 of my own money developing the technology and the food to allow us to start up. When we got the hosting deal with Sainsbury's I had to remortgage my home and put another £200,000 into the business.

Some of Ella's Kitchen's products
What hurdles did you face?

Two weeks before we got the listing at Sainsbury's said they’d take a flyer, and I thought I'd made it. I realised I needed to make it fly off the shelf but I needn't have worried – supplying demand was always more of a problem for us than creating demand.

Taking on the challenge of staff was tough – how do you create one team with the same goals when they join at different stages? Much of the first 18 months has been spent looking at building a sense of purpose to what we were trying to achieve beyond just selling products.

When did you start exporting?

Funnily enough, about two or three weeks into our placement with Sainsbury's we got a call from Malta asking if we could ship out there, but we didn't start exporting until 2009. We started with Sweden, Norway, Ireland and then the US and we've added three of four markets a year since.

Our ambition is to be the first global organic premium food brand for kids. So far, the research shows people are prepared to buy at a premium.

Have you seen no impact from the recession then?

No, not really. Our growth has been bigger than the baby food market as a whole. It seems to be the last thing people will give up spending money on.

The higher the price of the baby food, the more people want it, although we have seen older kids' food has been less recession proof.

The only way we've really been hit is with the price of commodities (cereals and grains, as well as petrol) yo-yoing.

There must be lots of companies competing in the baby and toddler food space – how do you make sure your brand stands out?

Competition isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but out brand does need to stand for something unique. Some competitors have very closely imitated what we do, but they don’t have the many layers we've created all the way through the company. Our focus is kids first; and we've got a huge amount of academic and market research to back our findings.

The other thing about our brand is the food isn't just about how it tastes; our brand has bright colours and tactile packaging.

But understanding how babies taste is important too – for example, babies have around three times as many tastebuds as we do and taste things with 10 times the intensity that we do.

We worked with Rachel Stevens (former S-Club 7 singer) recently creating 'tasty tunes' where we relyric-ed some songs to include fruit and veg words – that helps kids to interact with fruit and veg.

What's hard about your job?

It can be a very lonely job, being an entrepreneur. No one quite understands what is going through your head. It can be good to find mentors and to network with other entrepreneurs to help with that.

The biggest lesson I've had to learn is to identify which big things deserve your focus and to not spread into things that don't really matter.

The other lesson was that a business is solely about relationships and building layers within your team.

What advice would you give to any one looking to following your footsteps?

The key to success is to be passionate about what you’re doing. Be creative and be able to get beyond any barriers to entry you may face. What you’re trying to do isn't an easy thing, otherwise others would have done it before you.

You also need tenacity and a thick skin. You’ll be told 'no' a lot, but you need to be able to understand why they've said no.

And simplify everything. You should be able to get your business idea across and why it's different in a tweet.

"Dora The Explorer LIVE! Search For The City Of Lost Toys" And "Ben And Holly's Little Kingdom Live" To Perform At The Buxton Opera House, Derbyshire, During 2013

According to the official Derbyshire Times website, derbyshiretimes.co.uk, Nick Jr. megastar "Dora the Explorer" and Nick Jr. UK and Ireland stars Ben & Holly will be bring their live stage shows, "Dora The Explorer LIVE! Search For The City Of Lost Toys" and "Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom live stage show", to the Buxton Opera House in Derbyshire as part of the opera house's 2013 programme line-up!:

Spellbinding showcase of entertainment

A SPELLBINDING array of shows have been unveiled in the new season brochure for Buxton Opera House and Pavilion Arts Centre.

Running until August 2013, the new brochure features 100 events, from comedy, drama, ballet and [...] to modern dance, films, music, youth theatre and more.

[...]

Entertainment for the children comes courtesy of the Bafta award-winning TV animation Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom, The Wind in The Willows, Nickelodeon’s Dora the Explorer Live! and two shows of the awesomely entertaining Horrible Histories - Terrible Tudors and Vile Victorians.

[...]

Brochures are available now from the Buxton Opera House Box-Office. To buy tickets, request a brochure or for more information, call 0845 127 2190 or visit www.buxtonoperahouse.org.uk to make a booking.

Nickelodeon, Life Like Touring and Daniel Sparrow & Mike Walsh Productions' production of Nickelodeon's "Dora the Explorer LIVE! Search for the City of Lost Toys" will delight in this two act, song and dance spectacular that invites Dora The Explorer fans to think, sing and play along. Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer LIVE! is designed to teach kids to explore, communicate, overcome obstacles, solve puzzles and discover a diverse and exciting world…all while having a lot of fun! In Nickelodeon’s Dora the Explorer LIVE! Search for the City of Lost Toys, Dora has lost her teddy bear Osito, and the search is on to retrieve him! With the help of the audience, Map, Backpack, Boots, Diego and their courageous friends, Dora uses her map-reading, counting, musical and language skills to successfully passthrough the number pyramid and the mixed-up jungle to reach the City of Lost Toys. But watch out - you never know what that sneaky fox Swiper might be up to along the way!

According to the "What's On" area of the official Buxton Opera House website, buxtonoperahouse.org.uk, Richard Lewis' live stage show production of Nick Junior UK's popular animated preschool series "Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom" will start it's run at the Buxton Opera House from Saturday 16th March 2013.

Below is more information about "Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom" live stage show from the shows page on the official Buxton Opera House website, where you can also buy tickets to watch performances of the "Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom" live stage show at Buxton Opera House:

Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom

16 March 2013 1:00 PM
16 March 2013 4:00 PM
17 March 2013 11:00 AM
17 March 2013 2:00 PM

[Buy Tickets]

‘Somewhere, hidden amongst the thorny brambles is a little kingdom where everyone is very very small…’

From the makers of Peppa Pig comes this BAFTA award-winning television animation for the first time ever live on stage!

Holly is a young Fairy Princess, who is still learning how to fly and her magic doesn’t always go quite according to plan. Her best friend, Ben the Elf, doesn’t have wings and he doesn’t do magic, but he runs very fast and flies on the back of Gaston the Ladybird. They live in the Little Kingdom, a tiny land where flowers and grass rise high above them and every day is an adventure.

Ben and Holly have fun and games helping Gaston the Ladybird clean up his messy cave, they go on a trip into The Big World with tooth-fairy Nanny Plum, even plan a surprise birthday party for King Elf, and oops, let’s hope there’s not another jelly flood!

Join Ben and Holly, and their friends on this exciting musical adventure packed full of games, songs and laughter on an enchanting journey through the Magical Kingdom. With actors, masks and colourful costumes this beautiful story of elves, princesses and childhood innocence will delight all the family.

[Below is] a trailer for Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom [...]



Location: Buxton Opera House

Adults: £14.50, Children: £12.50. Family tickets: £50 (4 people incl at least 2 children), £37.50 (3 people incl at least 1 child). Children’s parties of 10 or more: £7.50 (accompanying adults 1 in 10 free)

Also, from the Sheffield Telegraph:

LISTINGS: Theatre, Amateur Stage, Performance, Dance - March 14 - March 21 2013

[...]

THEATRE

Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom, the Nickelodeon TV animation live on stage for the first time, Buxton Opera House, Saturday, 1pm and 4pm, Sunday, 11am, 2pm (£14.50, children: £12.50, family ticket £50).

Also, from the Derbyshire Times:

Events for children include Nickelodeon’s Dora The Explorer and Sooty’s Magic Show.

Nickelodeon UK Announces Plans To Start To Premiere Brand New Episodes Of "Alien Surf Girls" In January 2013!

According to the official Sky Media Ireland websites' 'Sky TV's Children's Television Highlights In January 2013' webpage, Nickelodeon UK has announced the Nickelodeon UK News that Nickelodeon UK will premiere and show the five remaining brand new episodes from season one of the brand new Australian live action television series "Alien Surf Girls" (also known as "Lightning Point") on Nickelodeon UK and Ireland and Nickelodeon HD UK in January 2013, as part of "January on Nickelodeon UK 2013"!:

Alien Surf Girls
Nickelodeon

When Zoey and Kiki, two irrepressible girls from another galaxy become castaways in the quiet, Australian seaside town of Lightning Point, they recruit local girl Amber to keep them undercover. But the whole town is abuzz with the sighting of aliens and the girls soon realise that they may not be the first intergalactic visitors. Join them for BRAND NEW eps this January.

The five remaining episodes of "Alien Surf Girls" season one which Nickelodeon UK is expected to show in January are:

Episode #22 - "Connections"
Episode #23 - "Surf's Up"
Episode #24 - "Meltdown"
Episode #25 - "Investigation"
Episode #26 (season finale) - "Flight"

[Source: NickUKHub]

A second season (season two) of "Alien Surf Girls", which will comprise of twenty-six brand new episodes, is currently in progress.