South Africans with kids to entertain will want to take notice of a British import arriving in the country today as the BBC Kids app launches locally.

Local mobile operator MTN has partnered with developer Switch Media to offer the child-focused entertainment and streaming platform to the country. The app is meant for kids between zero and 12 and, as you may have guessed by the name, is full of content from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

“The BBC’s award-winning children’s programming will be ad free and carefully curated according to age with sections specifically aimed at pre-school children and another for older primary school children, making the service easy to navigate and one that parents can trust,” a press release sent to us reads.

“Award-winning pre-school series such as Hey Duggee, Sarah & Duck, JoJo & Gran Gran, Yakka Dee and Swashbuckle, will be available to watch for the youngest viewers, whilst older kids and their families can look forward to Jamie Johnson and Harry Potter: A History of Magic and The Bagel and Becky Show, educational series, Horrible Histories and hilarious comedy based on the best-selling David Walliam’s book, Gangsta Granny.”

With the absence of ads parents and caregivers will need to pay for access to BBC Kids though the price of entry is rather low, depending on the chosen package.

The app can be accessed for R5 per day, R15 per week or R25 per month. You can see that taking the per day or per week options will greatly increase the cost of entry making the per month route the best way to go.

As for how much content is available for your money, Switch Media CEO Mark Johns provides a number.

“Switch Media is thrilled to join forces with BBC Kids and MTN to bring safe, ad free, education and entertainment to families across South Africa. Built using our award-winning MediaHQ solution, the dynamic new BBC Kids app features nearly 200 hours of content, a clean, easy to navigate interface and program recommendations,” the CEO says

BBC Kids can be downloaded from the Google Play Store or the MTN Play Portal.

For those curious as to what happens when you try to access the app as a non-MTN customer, the software downloads just fine but the sign up process requires an SMS verification token which never arrived on our Vodacom test phone.