BBC Kids

In November 2000, Alliance Atlantis was granted approval by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to launch BBC Kids in that country, described as "a national English language Category 2 specialty television service devoted to top-quality educational and entertaining programming for children and youth (ages 2-17). It will feature programming primarily from the UK and around the world. 65% of the programming will target children ages 2 to 11, the majority of which will target 6 to 11 years old and 35% will target youth ages 12 to 17."[1]

The channel was launched on November 5, 2001, as a joint venture between Alliance Atlantis and BBC Worldwide.[2][3] The channel primarily aired programs from the UK, but it also included Canadian programs, as required by the CRTC.

After a number of ownership changes, in 2011 under the new control of Knowledge Network, the channel became commercial-free. On October 2, 2018, it was announced the channel would cease operations on New Year's Eve 2018.[4] BBC children's content continued to air on Knowledge Network's eponymous channel.

This version of BBC Kids was for a time distributed in Jamaica on Flow Cable systems.[5] It was also available in The Bahamas on Cable Bahamas systems,[6] though had ceased to be so by mid-2012.

In 2019, Disney closed its Australian children's channels (Disney Channel and Disney Junior), and Australian pay TV operator Foxtel gained exclusive rights to Warner Media's Cartoon Network and Boomerang in 2021. This left the main other Australian carrier of channels to children, Fetch TV, with little to offer. In response it commissioned BBC Studios to create a channel for 6 to 10 year olds, dubbed BBC Kids. (unrelated to the Canadian channel of the same name)[7] The channel launched on 24 April 2021.[8] This complemented an existing CBeebies channel available in Australia, catering for children aged 0 to 6. At launch, all the programming of BBC Kids was already airing in the Australian market on ABC Me.

On January 11, 2022, BBC Studios added BBC Kids to the Pluto TV platform in the United States, both in English (as "BBC Kids") and in Spanish (as "Niños por BBC").[9]