The popular CBeebies and iPlayer children’s series, Monty & Co has hit the ground running with three major licensing partnerships spanning kids’ magazines, online retail, and audio stories with Tonies.

Immediate Media has added the pre-school IP to its successful CBeebies magazine, while Event Merchandising is in the midst of creating and managing an online store with the aim to be fully functional, with a range of merchandise, for this summer.

Finally, Tonies will be adding a Monty Tonie figure to its line-up of pre-school audio characters with a launch planned for summer 2022. The licensing deals arrive following the successful debut of the Monty & Co. series late last year. Since then, it has been hitting consistent audience numbers both in the linear space and on iPlayer, where it has hit one million plays already.

New episodes are now planned for production towards the end of 2021.

“Everyone involved is incredibly positive with the performance of the show to date. The characters are easy to engage with, the scripts for each episode are well written and play like mini dramas. Parents and children are loving the live action, the humour, the songs and the silliness included in each episode,” said Ian Wickham, director at Licensing Link Europe which is handling the global licensing programme for Monty & Co.

“Monty & Co is a refreshing change to the plethora of animated content pitched at the preschooler. Warm, traditional and endearing are definitely aspects of Monty’s success and I’m sure one of the reasons why parents are talking about the show in the playground – which is a very good thing.”

Liz Peters, portfolio manager at Tonies, added: “We are very excited to add Monty Tonie to our portfolio for 2022. He’s going to make a very popular figurine that little ones will love to pop on their Toniebox. We are looking forward to working closely with the show’s producers to create bespoke audio content for the Tonie, incorporating all that humour, fun and silliness, as well the action and songs that fans enjoy and expect from Monty & Co.”

With the new online store due to be up and running by the summer, Jeremy Goldsmith of Event Merchandise explained why the company was keen to be involved.

“The producers have created a wonderful show, and we are delighted to be designing and operating the online store for Monty & Co, along with a fun selection of products,” he commented. “The characters of this hit series join our selected line-up of licensed properties.”

Hollie Fisher, editor, CBeebies, concluded: “It’s a funny, loveable mini comedy drama which we think will resonate well with both our grown-up and younger, preschool audiences.”