CBBC DIGITAL CHANNELS GO LIVE IN FEBRUARY

CBBC will be the first of the BBC’s new digital channels to go live when it launches two new channels on February 11, 2002.
CBBC - for six to thirteen year olds - and CBeebies - a dedicated pre-school channel will both offer a high proportion of originally made programming in a commercial-free environment.
At the same time the channels will launch with their own distinctive logos and brand identities which will also be carried through on CBBC on BBC One and CBeebies on BBC One and BBC Two.
CBBC also announced a further slate of new shows that will premiere across the channels in the coming months.
Smile - produced by Darrall Macqueen - is the new Sunday morning show on CBBC. Commissioned for sixty weeks, it will be presented by Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates.
CBBC is also working in conjunction with BBC Radio 1 to bring the audience The Official UK Top 40 on CBBC. Hosted by Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq and Adrian Dickson this will play out new chart highlights as well as simultaneously revealing the new Number One.
CBBC is also raising its profile on a global scale, partnering with US-based Sesame Workshop and ABC in Australia to produce a new drama, ‘Two Down Under’. This drama is a coming-of-age drama which chronicles the lives of two teenagers who, through a series of circumstances, find themselves transplanted from their respective homes in the US and UK to a veterinary clinic on the outskirts of Sydney.
Nigel Pickard, Controller of CBBC, also announced that two new landmark series had been commissioned for the pre-school audience, not a single series as originally planned. Flip Flops (Working Title) was the successful in-house CBBC bid and Finders (Working Title only) comes from Novel Entertainment. (CD)