Okto is a Singaporean children's

programming block Block programming (also known as a strand in British broadcasting) is the arrangement of programs on radio or television so that those of a particular genre, theme, or target audience are united. Overview Block programming involves scheduling a ...

broadcast by

Mediacorp Mediacorp Pte. Ltd. is the state media, state-owned media conglomerate of Singapore. Owned by Temasek Holdings—the investment arm of the Government of Singapore—it owns and operates television channels, radio, and digital media properties. ...

's Channel 5 in English and Channel 8 in

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

. The brand originally operated as a standalone

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

channel from 19 October 2008 to 1 May 2019, having been spun off from the Kids Central and Arts Central strands aired by Central (whose

Tamil language Tamil (, , , also written as ''Tamizhil'' according to linguistic pronunciation) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. It is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world,. "Tamil is one of ...

programming had been concurrently spun off as the new channel

Vasantham ''Vasantam'' () is a 2003 Indian Telugu-language drama film written and directed by Vikraman. Produced by N. V. Prasad and Sanam Naga Ashok Kumar, the film starred Venkatesh, Arti Agarwal, and Kalyani. The music was composed by S. A. Rajkum ...

). The channel also occasionally aired sports programming; from 2017, arts programming was subsumed by other Mediacorp channels, resulting in the primetime block primarily airing sports programming. On 1 May 2019, the channel was discontinued, and Okto transitioned to becoming a children's block on Channel 5, and a content brand on MeWatch. The brand was later extended to Channel 8 in Chinese.

History

In March 2008, MediaCorp announced that it would split its channel Central into two separate channels; a channel serving the Indian community, and a channel focused on arts and children's programming. On 19 October 2008, the channel officially launched as Okto, alongside the new Tamil channel

. The name Okto was derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

numeral for "eight", as the channel was on

StarHub TV Star Hub TV is a pay television service provided by StarHub in Singapore. It has been a subsidiary of ''StarHub Limited'' since StarHub acquired ''Singapore Cable Vision'' (SCV) in 2001, and was the sole pay-TV operator in the country until 200 ...

channel 8 (the former EPG slot and channel allotments of the defunct

Channel i Channel i () is a Bangladeshi Bengali-language satellite and cable television channel owned by Impress Group. It was launched on 1 October 1999, as Bangladesh's first digital television channel. It is one of the oldest satellite television chan ...

) and Singtel Mio TV channel 108. Okto was split into two strands; children's programming (later branded as ''Okto Jr.)'' occupied most of the schedule, while programming from evening to closedown focused on arts and cultural programming. In June 2014, coinciding with its rights to selected matches of the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

, the ''Sports on Okto'' brand was introduced. In 2017, arts programming was dispersed from Okto to other Mediacorp channels, in favour of expanding the nightly ''OktoSports'' block. On 1 May 2019, Okto was discontinued as a television channel, with its children's programming becoming a daytime

block Block or blocked may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Block programming, the result of a programming strategy in broadcasting * W242BX, a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States known as ''96.3 ...

on Channel 5 under the ''Okto on 5'' branding, and a content brand on Mediacorp's streaming platform Toggle (now MeWatch); previously, Channel 5's daytime programming largely consisted of a simulcast of Mediacorp's news channel CNA. Okto's sports programming was also moved to Toggle and Channel 5. Okto's channel license was subsequently surrendered to the

Infocomm Media Development Authority The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) is a statutory board under the Singapore Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI). History The Telecommunication Authority of Singapore (TAS) was the statutory board that acted a ...

(IMDA). On 6 February 2021, the Okto brand was extended to Channel 8's children's programming block 乐乐窝 (Lè Lè Wō), which was rebranded as ‘Okto尽在8' (Okto on 8).

Programming

Since its standalone channel era, Okto mostly aired English-language programmes, with selected series being broadcast in their original language. The channel aired mostly children's programmes, as well as some arts and sports programmes. The channel's target audiences were children aged 4–13, and adults aged 18–39. From June 2014 to 30 April 2019, Sports on Okto (later renamed OktoSports) was introduced which showed sporting events live as well as recorded and delayed coverage. It occupied the nightly schedule from 9pm to closedown every night from 2017 to 2019. In September 2024, expanding upon existing agreements with the company, Mediacorp made its largest-ever acquisition of children's programmes from

BBC Studios BBC Studios Limited is a British content company. It is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC that was formed in April 2018 through the merger of the BBC's commercial production arm and the BBC's commercial international distribution arm, BBC Wor ...

, covering 150 hours of programming (including series such as ''

Go Jetters ''Go Jetters'' is a British animated television series airing on CBeebies and is also available on BBC iPlayer. A geography-based programme, it was commissioned by CBeebies controller Kay Benbow and is a co-production of CBeebies In-house Pro ...

'', ''

Hey Duggee ''Hey Duggee'' is a British pre-school children's animated television series aimed at two to five-year-olds. Created by Grant Orchard, it is produced by Studio AKA, in association with BBC Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide). The show is narra ...

'' and '' JoJo & Gran Gran'') to be carried by Okto and MeWatch.

References

External links

* (archived) {{Mediacorp 2008 establishments in Singapore 2019 disestablishments in Singapore Television stations in Singapore Mass media in Singapore Mediacorp Television channels and stations established in 2008 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2019 Television programming blocks in Asia