RTÉ Kids (7-12's)

2022 was our catch-up year post pandemic. Production in the sector ramped up massively and saw our kids’ content slate diversify more and more. For our RTÉ Kids audience, Dyehouse Films supersized our national digital art competition, This Is Art!, by producing a brand-new companion art series, This Is Art Club!. Presented by Holly Pereira and Shane Keeling, This Is Art Club! is fast becoming the new place and new space to celebrate and participate in all things creative.

Continuing the theme of celebrating creativity, it was also hugely exciting and a privilege for RTÉ Kids to collaborate with both Junk Kouture and Fresh Film, Ireland’s Young Film Maker of The Year, to showcase and celebrate the enormous amount of creative talent emerging from Ireland in 2022.

Keep It Up from Macalla Teoranta exploded onto our screens. This six-part series explored and analysed the circumstances that can lead teenage girls to disengage from team sports. Fronted by Emer O’Neill from Home School Hub, Keep It Up was much more than a TV show – it was a movement.

Next up was Ireland’s Future Is MINE (Reverist and Tamber Media), the ultimate e-sports competition and a first for RTÉ. After months of hard work and nail-biting showdowns, two schools– Moyvore National School, Westmeath and St Hugh’s National School, Leitrim - went head to head in the final, with St Hugh’s emerging victorious.

Wild Atlantic Kids (Fubar Films) is a series for all those who have itchy feet. We followed the Fortune family as they weaved their way along the Wild Atlantic Way. 2022 also saw us launch another very successful new series, Storybud (Kite Entertainment) – classic fairytales with a twist. Written by Jason Byrne, Karl Harpur, Alison Spittle, Bernard O’Shea and Sinéad Quinlan and narrated by Doireann Garrihy, Deirdre O’Kane, Baz Ashwamy, Bernard O’Shea and Jason Byrne, Storybud is bite-sized perfection and LOL. There were also five Christmas episodes to unwrap.

The tail end of 2022 saw a number of series return by popular demand. Tom Bán was back with another series of Bush Kids 2 (GMarsh TV). Four new families were back taking a walk on the wild side and learning all there is to know about how to survive in the wild.

Animation was, as always, a cornerstone to output for this age group. Brand-new episodes of Royals Next Door and Ink & Light (Finnish–Spanish studio Pikkukala and Belgium’s Walking the Dog respectively) dropped in 2022 alongside Stella’s Royal Vlog on our Kids’ YouTube channel. Last but by no means least, we commissioned five beautiful and poignant World Mental Health Day short films from the animation sector which explored issues that affect children trying to navigate the world today.

RTÉjr (0-6's)

2022 was jam-packed with animated and live action series for this age group.

Animation

Brand new animated series for our youngest viewers included Happy the Hoglet (Paper Owl), in which Happy is a small character with very big feelings. Wee Littles (Magpie 6 Media) Bitsy, Itsy, Mini, Teensy and Jeremy Throckmorton III showed us that no matter how small you are, you can do amazing things! Atom Town (Treehouse Republic) is a colourful community of characters based on the elements of the periodic table. Fia’s Fairies (Little Moon Animation) is a wonderful language series that teaches you Gaeilge while exploring fairyland with Fia, Ameer, Blaithín and Cuán.

Ray of Sunshine (Daily Madness) was where kids got to hang out with the most sunshiney seven-year-old ever, for fun tea parties and gardening adventures plus brand-new episodes of firm favourites Alva’s World and Kiva Can Do from Kavaleer Live Action. Bright Sparks (Macalla Teoranta) was back in the ever-colourful Bright’s Park to join Séamus, Dr Tunes, Wild Guy, Clara, Mrs Owlington, Billy, Aoife and Alpha on a journey through their animated everyday lives. where they use their unique skillsets to clear up complications, create magic, help others, have fun and save the day. Brand new to RTÉjr in 2022.

The Imagination Machine (Firebrand Productions) follows Ella, Lucy and Blaze as they go on amazing adventures through time and space thanks to the magical powers of a special book and an old cardboard box, but around every corner lurk Dr Dotty and Mr Fluffy Pants, looking to cause mischief.

Dizzy Deliveries (Macalla Teoranta) was another first for RTÉjr, being the first kids’ TV show in Ireland to teach and use Lámh signs. It is intended for all pre-schoolers and targets children with special intellectual needs. In every episode we meet Joe, the delivery man with magical powers, Ozzy, the flying robot who works with Joe and helps him make his deliveries, and Aisling. She is the boss of the Dizzy Deliveries and she helps the gang with their Lámh signs every day. Aisling will also teach three key Lámh signs in a fun way, and she wants everyone to join in at home too!

Simon Says, a gorgeous music-filled series (Meangadh Fibín) closed out the year. Simon is a lighthouse keeper and a musician, and this series delivers the most fantastic earworms for all our viewers to sing along with, wherever they are watching.

RTÉjr Radio & Podcast

2022 offered RTÉjr Radio the chance to re-engage with our young audience in person, to amplify and include voices that Covid had kept out of studio for too long. DJ for a Day welcomed kids onto the airwaves to take control every weekend, selecting and presenting their own shows.

Cereal, our ‘not really’ true crime podcast, brought young actors and adults from across the country into a mystery mentored by RTÉ’s Ryan Tubridy. Mothertongues went into schools where more than 30 languages were spoken to gather and share children’s stories and advice for one another as they relearned how to play and share space. The Kids Are All Right addressed mental and physical health for children. Nero’s Class invented new mythologies and surreally brilliant characters on an island where only three children live. And Oscar-nominated Ciarán Hinds joined our roster in voicing The Neighbourhood.

Time invested in our podcast roster seems to have served us well on the awards front. Four shows were nominated in the inaugural Irish Podcast Awards Family Category, and we took home the top three spots with Someone Like Me taking gold. Maddie and Triggs won gold for Special Creativity, and Ecolution was recognised in the Environmental Category in a year when Mary Robinson came on the show to answer children’s questions on climate justice and express her desire to see more intergenerational discussion on the airwaves.

More nominations in the IMROs and two wins at the Prix Ex Aequo, the international children’s and youth radio drama festival, for Cereal and The Emperor’s New Duds proved that, once again, our small station punched above its weight both at home and abroad.