Swipe TV returns with new app and a crack at a children’s TV record

Thumbs up? Or thumbs down? When Swipe TV, the RTÉ2 entertainment series aimed at seven-to-13-year-olds, comes back on air next Monday it will be drawing the attention of its audience to a new app that will allow its young viewers to influence the content of the show.

The app, which will include extra content as well as features from the show as it is broadcast, has been in development for more than two years.

"We can monitor what gets more hits, make more of the stuff they like and also have the courage to take out things if they have no appeal," says Swipe TV series producer Sally Roden.

“Children are platform neutral and they are consuming media wherever they find it,” she adds.

“We thought that if in some way we could react more directly to their likes and dislikes it would make a better experience for them and a better show for us.”

The production team will also encourage its viewers to upload their own content via the app. Before it can be published it goes through an approval process, with the permission of parents sought.

Although the age range for Swipe TV is given as seven-to- 13-year-olds, the core age group is 10-12-year-olds, according to Roden.

Swipe TV, which was launched earlier this year, is produced by the same team behind the previous RTÉ2 show aimed at this age group, Elev8.

“The show and the app were designed hand in glove,” explains Roden.

Monday's episode will see the series return with a bang – or, more accurately, a splodge – as it attempts to break a record for the number of people "gunged" in three minutes. (The record, in case you were wondering, is held by CBBC's Blue Peter and currently stands at 59.)

The attempt is an extension of a regular weekly quiz slot that culminates in a teacher being gunged and added to a “gallery of gunging”.

Roden says Swipe TV isn't in danger of running out of teachers to gunge just yet. "The teachers are great sports," she says.