Children's and Youth content in 2025-26

We celebrate the creativity and impact of child and youth-focused storytelling, connecting tamariki and rangatahi across Aotearoa with authentic, locally made content.

Bloke of the Apocalypse storyboard
Bloke Of The Apocalypse, Good On Ya Mate Productions

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Engaging young audiences

We aim to build lifelong connections with local story-telling.

Engaging young New Zealanders with quality local content is an important part of achieving our purpose of developing New Zealand’s identity and culture – our youngest citizens are our future. Their media consumption habits are quite different to older audiences, so we focus on supporting content that resonates with them on the platforms they use the most.

In 2025-26, we invested $19.2m in Scripted and Non-fiction content for children and youth. We also invested in 11 New Music Kids singles and five multi-song projects under New Music Project Kids. We invested in comprehensive research on children’s media use and created two YouTube channels for children, KIDOGO and KIDOGO Junior.

By the numbers

21%

Percentage of Scripted and Non-fiction funding for Children and Youth content

110

Hours of content available on KIDOGO and KIDOGO Junior

5 million

Total views across KIDOGO and KIDOGO Junior

Meeting tamariki where they are

Our Where Are The Audiences – Children's Media Use Research published in November 2025 highlighted a growing challenge to connect under-14s with local content. The research found that 69% of them use YouTube daily. The highest daily reach with this audience for any local platform was 20% for TVNZ channels including TVNZ+. Parents told our researchers they value local content for their tamariki but don't know where to find it.

Against the backdrop of this research  the KIDOGO YouTube channels were launched. KIDOGO, for primary school aged children, and KIDOGO Junior for preschoolers, provide a curated, constantly growing range of  local content for children on YouTube and YouTube Kids. The content has been, or continues to be, also available on local broadcast platforms.

In launching KIDOGO we were mindful of safety concerns and ensured we used the available safety features in YouTube for the channels. In addition, we have made safety messaging to parents and caregivers a key component of all our KIDOGO communications and marketing.

KIDOGO IDOGO Junior combined logos

Success stories

Kiri And Lou

Kiri And Lou has become a globally recognised children’s franchise, which now includes a successful feature film Kiri And Lou Go Raaa!

Stretchy Productions, with co-production and credit involvement from Filmwork and Yowza Animation, created the gentle stop-motion animated series that entertains New Zealand tamariki and audiences overseas in more than a dozen territories, including on BBC UK, Nick Jr US, ABC Kids Australia and CBC Canada.

This year's feature film had its World Premiere at Annecy International Film Festival in France. Featuring the voices of Olivia Tennet and Jemaine Clement and music by Don McGlashan it delighted critics, and the most powerful critics, children, in cinemas across New Zealand and beyond.

Kiri and Lou

Kiri and Lou, Kiri and Lou Limited

Funded $200,000 for Kiri and Lou Go Raaa! (feature film) May 2023, released in cinemas in August 2026

TV series funded since 2016 and available on KIDOGO Junior, Sky TV, TVNZ, Māori+ (in te reo)

Kiri and Lou is not only artistic in aesthetics but in vision and substance, too. Kiri, Lou and friends are always making music and telling stories; there’s a character called That’s-Ok-Don’t-Worry-About-It who holds poetry readings. [...] In a world that seems, at times, to be hell bent on de-valuing art, it is nourishing and deeply optimistic to embed art-making into a TV show intended for growing brains and fresh personalities.
Claire Mabey for The Spinoff

Mr Hugo’s Little Library

Mr. Hugo’s Little Library brought razzle dazzle and fun to the screen for young audiences. Pitched at 4-8 year olds, the eight-episode series champions the value of literacy and proudly celebrates diversity and inclusion. Three young friends meet an enthusiastic librarian, Mr. Hugo, and discover a magic library where books come to life – literally – with storytelling through music, dance, imaginative play, and theatrical performance.

The series features a talented ensemble of performers drawn from musical theatre and drag traditions, alongside original music performed by renowned singers, including award-winning New Zealand singers Tami Neilson, Ladyhawke, and Richard O’Brien of Rocky Horror Show fame.

Mr Hugo's Little Library

Mr Hugo's Little Library, Little Library Productions NZ

There is a magic in the art of storytelling that resonates especially strongly with children. The imagination and intuition kids use to understand the world around them is a powerful force for good. Mr. Hugo’s Little Library really evokes that fantastic world of song, dance and dress-up into a joyous and colourful series about friendship and peer support. We are all very proud of it.
Gibson Group Executive Director Gary Scott

Mr Hugo's Little Library launched on TVNZ in February 2026, on RNZ and on Canada's TVOkids in June 2026, and will also screen on Knowledge Kids in Canada. The series also qualified for the NZSPR.

Funded $1,118,603, released April 2026, available on TVNZ+ and RNZ

Katie’s Kurī

Animated children’s show Katie’s Kurī cleverly combines children’s natural affinity with cute puppies and curiosity to learn te reo Māori. Created by The Sweet Shop Entertainment, the story explores the friendship between a lonely girl named Katie and her new puppy, Rascal, as she learns to train the pup at Whaea Kaz's dog training school, in te reo Māori.

The show has found a very enthusiastic audience. One Auckland primary school teacher shared her response to the series which she had been showing to her class for te reo Māori lessons.

Katie's Kurī

Katie's Kuri, The Sweet Shop Entertainment

My class are so into it, and keep asking me to watch more episodes each day. I just wanted to mihi ki a koutou and all involved to say ngā mihi for creating/funding a beautiful series that students and adults alike love. I've also passed it on to the whole school to watch.
Year 5 and 6 teacher

Meanwhile the real test is what the children think of it. This is what a couple of the pupils who watched it said.

Today we finished watching Katie's Kurī season 1 and I LOVED it so much. I hope to Pluto and back that you make a season 2, 3, and 4.
All of your episodes are amazingly animated and has a cool storyline. I like how Rascal is just a cute little silly dog. This show makes me want to learn more te reo Māori. I hope you make season 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Bloke Of The Apocalypse

Funding through our youth initiative Within My Reach allowed young animator Charlie Faulks to polish his skills and create a 2D-animated horror-comedy.

Inspired by his family and childhood on a Gisborne farm, the Wellington-based Screen Arts student created the series from his student flat.  It follows a father, Bloke, and his son Oliver as they combat a zombie apocalypse on their farm in rural New Zealand.

Bloke Of The Apocalypse was released on YouTube and TikTok in November 2025, reaching rangatahi where they are most likely to consume content. It achieved 1.2million YouTube views, and 1.5million TikTok views.

A second series has been funded.

Bloke of the Apocalypse

Bloke Of The Apocalypse, Good On Ya Mate Productions

The real genius of the show is how Faulks takes the classic Fred Dagg-style “Kiwi bloke” and filters him through a Gen Z lens. There’s humour, admiration, mockery and affection all at once. Bloke is both an exaggerated stereotype and a loving tribute. Watching him trudge through a zombie apocalypse with the same attitude he’d take to repairing a fence line, “ah, she’ll be right”, is comedy gold.
Review on Spicypulp.com

The School Repeaters

The School Repeaters, a Pasifika comedy webseries was initially funded through the Within My Reach initiative and drew large audiences and received social media acclaim.

Based on the story of four Pasifika youths who have to repeat their final year at school after a prank backfires, The School Repeaters achieved more than 1.7million views on Coconet.tv and RNZ's YouTube channel. And while it appealed to the youth demographic (30.9% of viewers were aged 13-24 years) it also has strong appeal for a slightly older group with 42.8% of viewers aged 25-34 years.

Audience engagement was extremely high with 2.9million likes on TikTok and 190,000 followers. Comments on social media reinforced that the audience found the humour relatable:

The School Repeaters poster

The School Repeaters, The Niu Wav

School repeaters FB comment
School repeaters FB comment 1

Funded $673,574 and released February 2026 on Coconet.tv and RNZ YouTube

Second season funded July 2026.

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