JimJam will air 12 hours a day across the Middle East and North Africa with several of the channel’s leading programmes and characters dubbed in Arabic. JimJam features some of the world’s most loved and trusted shows including Thomas & Friends™, Bob the Builder™, Barney & Friends™, Fireman Sam™, Kipper™, Oswald™, and the recently acquired Wiggles creation - Dorothy the Dinosaur™. 

Wayne Dunsford said, “We are delighted that JimJam has now reached the Middle East and will be entertaining and educating young children throughout the region.  The take up of the channel has been phenomenal and we’re looking forward to making further announcements regarding our ever-growing reach in the coming weeks.”

Marc-Antoine d’Halluin, President and CEO of Showtime Arabia, said, “JimJam  adds to the best in Kids entertainment available on our network as it contains some of the world’s most popular children’s characters providing kids with highly entertaining, family friendly experiences delivered in innovative ways. We are very pleased to welcome Bob, Thomas, Barney and their friends to join our network.”

Ideally suited for children aged between 1 and 6, JimJam is designed to engage, educate and provide a safe and trusted viewing environment for young children.  It offers an enchanting and lively programming mix of the world’s favourite animations, sing-along-fun with costume “song and dance” series, captivating story-telling, puppets and claymation.

The channel also stimulates young minds by way of English language learning segments where children are introduced to basic English words and recurring learning blocks concentrating on colours, numbers and shapes.

The Showtime deal sees the first Middle East launch of JimJam which is continuing its impressive roll out since its debut at the end of 2007.  Chello Zone and HIT Entertainment are jointly behind the international launch and distribution of JimJam after acquiring the channel in September 2007.