Penelope K, By The Way wins CBeebies pitch

BBC Worldwide Channels Australasia has announced the winner of its nationwide search for a new kid’s TV show for its CBeebies channel: Penelope K, by the way from Blink Films.

The series, from producer Michael Bourchier (Out There, The Upside Down Show), will be the first local production for the channel and is the winner from over 100 submissions. It also beat out two entries from Beyond.

BBC describes the series as follows: Penelope K runs the “Information Station”, the place you go to when you want to know about anything at all. Like rainbows. Or pharaohs. Or kangaroo pouches.

While Penelope K has all the enthusiasm in the world, the answer to the question invariably slips away from her like a dream when she tries to recall it. She must rely on her more-or-less reliable friends including a shadow rabbit, a troupe of floating instruments, two know-it-all fish called Ning and Nong and Squirm, a List Worm, who helps her collate information.

Blink Films will produce the 25 x 12 min. series in association with Freehand with a budget of $250,000 per programming hour. It will air on CBeebies in Australia in 2010, followed by the UK and other territories.

Producer Michael Bourchier said, “The basic theme of the show is “Being wrong is just the first step to being right”. Penelope K gives our audience the tools to love the process of learning and find answers through asking questions, even if the pathways to the answer may seem ridiculous.

Michael Carrington from CBeebies said, “Penelope K, by the way is an incredibly creative concept with extraordinary depth and vision.

“Michael’s understanding of the inquisitive minds of our pre-school aged audience shone through both on the page and in the face to face pitch session.”

Bourchier added: “The idea I pitched to them was pretty left-field but they saw that as a positive rather than as a problem, thankfully!