have just celebrated their fourth birthday from their home at the top of the ratings.
Anchored by such parent-pleasing powerhouses as Arthur, The Magic School Bus, Pingu and Kratts' Creatures, the TVO Kids' weekday slot now draws a whopping 29 percent of after-school viewers aged 2 to 11 across the province. It is the only network in Ontario to gain young after-school viewers this past year, and it has edged past the mighty YTV.
But TVO knows it's the infectious warmth of weekday host Patty Sullivan and Joe Motiki and the growing popularity of Sunday morning's pyjama-clad Rekha Shah, that make these blocks such a hit.
How are they so popular when they appear only between shows, sometimes for just five seconds? In the entire time-slot they anchor on a given day, we'll see them for no more than 25 minutes - yet they're mobbed on their cross-province tours and swamped by mail at the network.
What's the secret? Joe believes it's because children play a clear role.
"We're interactive - REALLY interactive, not the way some networks SAY they're interactive by reading some piece of E-mail each day," he said after a recent Monday morning planning meeting. "In any given week, more than 700 kids can honestly say they had some part in TVO Kids."
Twice each day they set aside more than two minutes to read up to 10 percent of their viewer mail. On Tuesdays, they play a trivia game called ThunderWheel with a live caller. Wednesday a child can dedicate the show to someone (often a teacher). Thursday in Crawlspace Craziness, a child calls up to give the host three topics with which they must make a short story in five minutes. Sunday, Rekha answers questions about almost anything (which shouldn't be hard for someone who scored the highest Grade 13 average when she graduated from her Ottawa high school six years ago). Often there's an ongoing mystery children call up to help solve.
But it is the daily birthday phenomenon that proves Joe's point.
"In our house, Patty and Joe rule." states Toronto mother of four Catherine Hicks, one of thousands of Ontario parents whose kids' biggest thrill is to see their birthday card held up on camera before the hit cartoon Arthur starts at 5 p.m.
With up to 150 birthday cards rolling in each day - and TVO Kids determined to show every last one - the fame is fleeting, but children like Katie Hicks won't care. Just seeing her card fly past on her sixth birthday Monday will make her day, and the show's producer Kim Wilson knows this.
"Just hearing their name read over the air in that three-eighths of a second makes the show real for kids," says Wilson. "It's important for them to know that as a public broadcaster, we're accessible. It's part of being interactive."
Patty Sullivan, who has co-hosted TVO Kids since it launched in April 1994, has carved out an effective role as straight-man to Joe Motiki's clown - unless she's playing one of her own costumed characters, including the gum-chewing sportscaster Donna Berry, who wears an awfully big white collar.
"Parents are always thanking us," says Wilson. "About one-third of kids watch with their parents, and there's a comfort level the whole family appreciates."
STARWEEK MAGAZINE "Kid's Stuff" Louise Brown May 2-9, 1998
