A Parent Media Co Inc.’s video platform, Kidoodle.TV, helped to kickstart safe streaming for children. It’s now transforming the sports content arena.
By Ernest Granson
The year was 2012. Calgary, Alberta dad Michael Lowe became concerned when a scary movie trailer popped up on the screen as his four-year-old son watched a video on YouTube. After the young boy experienced several weeks of recurring nightmares, Lowe decided to do something about that concern by creating a human-vetted children’s global streaming platform. There was no alternative streaming platform for kids at that time – it would be another three years before YouTube offered its own children’s channel.
Collaborating with his colleague and close friend, Neil Gruninger, a 2006 graduate of the University of Lethbridge’s New Media degree program, Lowe developed a state-of-the-art streaming platform. Called Kidoodle.TV, it fused human monitoring and proprietary metadata tagging (named Safe Exchange) to make sure its content was kid friendly. Parent company APMC was formed to create and operate the Kidoodle.TV platform, launched in 2014.
While the two co-founders successfully implemented the technology component, the search for appropriate content proved to be further validation. “We quickly realized that children’s programming was a significantly more affordable entry point than mainstream entertainment,” Gruninger says. “This niche provided the most cost-effective way to get a seat at the table, allowing us to build a massive library without the multi-billion dollar overhead required for other genres.”
By attending events such as MIPCOM (Marché International des Programmes de Communication), considered the largest global television and streaming content market, held in annually Cannes, France, Kidoodle.TV managed to secure its original list of shows that included titles such as My Little Pony, Transformers and Sonic the Hedgehog, along with content from National Geographic and others.
Within a year, as the Kidoodle.TV app rapidly gained popularity, APMC announced it had signed additional content partnerships with three top digital content creators. Many of those partnerships, and more, continue today. According to Kidoodle.TV, it now streams more than 50,000 video episodes on more than 1,000 different types of devices in more than 160 countries. It’s available on iOS, Android, Macs and PCs as well as streaming media boxes such as Roku, Apple TV and Fire TV.
As platforms pivoted toward ad-supported models to broaden reach, APMC recognized a clear shift in consumer behavior toward free, high-quality content. This realization marked a pivotal acceleration point in the company’s history, moving from subscription-based revenue to advertising-based revenue. “In 2018, we removed the payment gateway to ensure all families had access to viewing safety,” says Gruninger. “We felt it was crucial that our service was accessible to families of all income brackets.” The transition presented several operational challenges for the team to navigate. In order to monetize its advertising model, the video platform had to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), which mandated that viewer data could not be tracked or used. This requirement added a significant new layer of technical complexity to the project. “But we also had to ensure the ads themselves were appropriate for our young audience,” Gruninger notes. “Safety required smarter technology, so we built Safe Exchange, a programmatic solution that screens advertisements in real time to allow only brand-safe content.”
Every advertisement submitted to the Safe Exchange undergoes a careful review process to ensure absolute safety. An initial AI scan checks every frame, but the final decision always rests with a real person on the team. This hands-on approach sets the platform apart from other streaming services. After removing the monthly fee, Kidoodle.TV saw a massive surge in new viewers. While other apps offered free videos, the “guarded wall” for both ads and content became the ultimate game-changer. Making the service free allowed more families to connect in a secure environment – a move that remains a vital strategy for reaching global audiences today.
Family Affair
With the Kidoodle.TV model firmly established, APMC pivoted to address a key trend: older children migrating from standard programming to the rapidly expanding world of creator culture. While this digital landscape was exploding, it lacked the essential safeguards required for younger audiences and their families. To address this gap, the team partnered with Dude Perfect of Frisco, Texas to build a bespoke streaming experience. This custom platform was designed to scale creators as global entertainment brands while maintaining APMC’s rigorous safety standards.
This collaboration offered creators direct audience ownership, and for APMC, it integrated a massive base of 60 million subscribers and 15 billion existing views. Additionally, the move formalized a second corporate headquarters in Texas, an expansion that would eventually prove even more strategically meaningful for the company’s long-term global operations.
Shaking up the sports neighborhood
The Texas connection highlighted a high-potential demographic for APMC: sports fans. While engaging this audience was always a long-term objective, the massive gap between traditional cable ratings and streaming numbers initially slowed industry-wide distribution shifts. As viewing habits pivoted toward digital platforms, Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) faced declining revenues and a reduced ability to guarantee lucrative local rights fees. “Ratings were decreasing because the RSNs were based on blackouts that limited access for fans,” says Gruninger. “We recognized the opportunity to flip the business model by offering sports for free over the internet, where 97% of the population already has access. That also unlocked a powerful hook for teams: finally knowing exactly who was watching and gaining access to the data needed to directly market to those fans.”
Challenges persisted for teams as cord-cutting accelerated, forcing organizations to maintain financial guarantees while sacrificing audience growth and long-term fan connection. Younger viewers, in particular, were drifting away, as teams failed to meet them on the platforms where they were consuming content. While cable once dominated the media landscape due to sports distribution, a pivotal shift occurred in late 2025 when streaming captured a record 47.5% of total television viewership, officially surpassing traditional cable for the first time (*Streaming viewership captured 47.5% of television in December 2025, eclipsing its previous record set in July 2025 to achieve the largest share of TV ever reported in Nielsen’s The Gauge™, the media industry’s leading snapshot of total TV and streaming consumption).
“We predicted this digital migration much earlier, recognizing that younger fans simply weren’t adopting legacy viewing habits,” says Gruninger. This transformation set the stage for a 2024 agreement between APMC and the NHL’s Dallas Stars. The multi-year partnership introduced free, in-market streaming for every game beginning in the 2024–2025 season, anchoring APMC’s newly launched Victory+ platform and establishing a scalable, advertising-supported alternative to the outdated RSN model.
The Dallas Stars announcement captured the attention of other professional organizations, including the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks, the MLB’s Texas Rangers, and the WHL, which entered similar agreements that season. Beyond major leagues, Victory+ resonated with a broader range of sports long underserved by traditional media. Many lacked both visibility and the resources to deliver high-quality digital experiences. By optimizing revenue, expanding audience reach, and ensuring consistent broadcast quality, the platform emerged as a modern solution. Partners now span the WHL, NWSL, MASL, League One Volleyball, and the Texas High School Coaches Association, each using Victory+ to connect directly with fans.
“As a Lethbridge, Alberta native, I immediately recognized the value of the WHL and other emerging leagues,” says Gruninger. “Growing up in a small town, you understand how central sports are to community identity, news, and the economy.” That personal connection shaped APMC’s strategy to invest in leagues often overlooked by major broadcasters, says Gruninger. By ensuring free and reliable access, Victory+ enables fans in smaller markets to consistently follow their teams. The platform also emphasizes deeper engagement through gamified viewing experiences, and community-driven storytelling. Supporting the growth of hockey in Western Canada and similar regions reflects a broader commitment to reinvesting in the communities that built the foundation of fandom.
For sports organizations, Victory+ has become a powerful growth engine, multiplying both reach and revenue by demonstrating to brands the scale that exists in local markets, paired with precision ad insertion and direct access to first-party fan data. By removing the paywall and embracing a free model, teams have seen viewership increase by as much as ten times compared to their previous RSN distributions. Peak viewership has climbed to 342,000 for a single NHL game, while the Texas Rangers have reached 171,000 peak viewers. This expanded reach also translates into measurable gains across ticket sales, merchandise, and brand engagement. The Dallas Stars, for example, have recorded a 14.3% year-over-year increase in ticket sales and a 56.6% surge in merchandise revenue for the 2025–26 season to date.
This impact came as no surprise to Gruninger. It was a scenario APMC had long anticipated and deliberately built toward. “More than just economics, we’ve taken a fundamentally different approach by creating a socially minded sports platform that solves local distribution challenges while building a true destination for fans,” he says. “By integrating creator-driven content directly into the viewing experience it enables immediate analysis, storytelling, and distribution, reflecting shifting consumption habits.”
Gruninger says AMPC’s formula for fueling fandom is to remove friction by keeping content free and widely available. This redefines how content is distributed, experienced, and monetized, modernizing an outdated system. While APMC has achieved major milestones, for Gruninger, the success is bittersweet. His close friend and co-founder, Michael Lowe, passed away in 2023 and was not able to see the fruits of their success. “Mike was an incredible person who saw the best in the people he worked with,” Gruninger says. “His confidence trickled down to everyone. That was truly a superpower. Kidoodle.TV was his vision and Victory+ is his legacy. Democratizing sports and building a fan-first ecosystem were his values—now, we’re simply bringing them to life.”