UK children’s radio station Fun Kids is now the biggest producer of family podcasts in the world.
The station, which broadcasts nationwide in the UK on DAB Digital Radio, has been making podcasts since 2009, but they’re now responsible for 68 different podcast channels on a wide-range of topics to appeal to the interests of kids and families.
“Fun Kids has always been jam-packed with the most interesting content” says Station Manager Matt Deegan “we’re excited to make it over 2,000 episodes available to everyone, for free”.
In the UK kids are strong podcast listeners. According to RAJAR’s recent JamJar research, 18% of UK children (9 to 14s) listen to podcasts each week, on average for 41 minutes each.
The station produces regular podcast-specific shows including weekly kids magazine The Fun Kids Download presented by Sean Thorne and the Fun Kids Science Weekly presented by Dan Simpson with features about space, the human body and interviews with scientists from all over the world.
Today Fun Kids is announcing the Fun Kids Book Club – a new reading podcast. Its first episode kicks off with an interview with Kid Normal authors Greg James and Chris Smith, a reading from the new Future Ratboy book by author Jim Smith and presenter Bex Lindsay‘s top five books for the summer.
Alongside these podcasts, kids and parents can download Professor Hallux Builds a Body, Deep Space High, Age of the Dinosaurs, Marina Ventura’s Guide to Our Planet and many more. There’s even a not-quite-Serial series called Bryony Brownwell’s Mystery Project. All of them are free and most are full-series so kids can binge-listen to their heart’s content.
The Fun Kids team has worked alongside many partners including the UK Space Agency, the National Gallery, the Bank of England, the Intellectual Property Office and the British Heart Foundation to produce some of these great shows.
As well as loads of audio podcasts, the station’s got a range of video podcasts too. Kids can keep up to date on the going’s on at Disney’s The Lodge and even watch cartoons to learn languages like Polish.
Matt Deegan: “Over a quarter of million children listen to Fun Kids on their radios, but we want to make all of our great shows available on parents’ phones, the family tablet and on the desktop too.”
All 68 podcast channels are available on funkidslive.com/podcasts, the Fun Kids app, itunes.com/funkids and many of the world’s podcast aggregators.
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