Disney's Playhouse doubles audience

Playhouse Disney's Handy Manny

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Preschool channel Playhouse Disney has seen its audience share double year-on-year.

The channel, which airs shows such as Little Einsteins and My Friends Tigger and Pooh, has seen its audience rocket from 0.15% of multichannel homes in 2007 to 0.30% so far this year, with the figures incorporating the timeshifted Playhouse Disney Plus.

The channel's most popular show so far this year has been Handy Manny which attracted an audience of 182,000 (1.70%) on 3 July in a 5.15pm slot. Not too far behind that was Harry and his Bucketful of Dinosaurs on 30 January at 6.30pm with 175,000 (0.98%).

Audiences for television aimed at children has grown generally across the board this year but Playhouse Disney has outperformed the genre.

Jetix's total audience has risen by 23.1% year-on-year to 0.16% while the main Disney Channel has seen audiences rise by 15.5% to claim a share of 0.67%. CITV has benefitted from a 7.7% rise in viewing, growing its share to 0.28%.

Michael Cairns, general manager, Playhouse Disney UK and Ireland said: "Playhouse Disney is going from strength to strength and these figures are a tribute to its success in engaging and inspiring preschoolers and their parents. We have some great new series lined up for autumn and we're looking forward to growing our audience further over the next few months."

Playhouse Disney though as a long way to go before it can start to rival the market leader for preschool viewing. Seven shows on the BBC's CBeebies channel have gained an audience of half a million or more. Top show so far has been Carrie and David's Popshop with 565,000 (5.09%) at 5pm on 21 February.

While CBeebies' growth has been more modest than Playhouse Disney's with audiences rising 18% year-on-year, it dominates the preschool channels with a sizeable audience share of 1.23%.

The BBC's other children's channel CBBC has seen its audience rise from 0.44% to 0.49%, up by 11.4%.