In tough times for print, the pre-school market has been one burgeoning sector for the magazine industry – as the last set of ABC results showed.
It now seems that leaders in this sector Immediate Media, who run the various BBC TV spin-off titles, are keen to lead their young readers into the digital worldd.
Will it work? Do we want it to?
Personally, I can' t think of quicker way to burn £400 than by handing my three-year-old an iPad. And isn't part of the charm of the various pre-school magazines that they encourage young minds to engage in print away from the TV screen?
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The CBeebies app will have four issues a year, available for £9.99, and will offer "parents and young children a chance to learn and play with a whole host of favourite CBeebies characters on a new mobile platform".
The mag will include fully interactive puzzles, and activities which support various areas of learning.
The CBeebies Weekly title was one of the fastest growing print mags in the the first half of this year – with sales up 11.7 per cent to more than 50,000 copies a week.
The new CBeebies app is aimed at three to six-year-olds. Good luck to them. But personally I'm hoping we can stave off the time that iPads are a must-have pre-school accessory a little longer.
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