Pinkfong, the South Korean entertainment studio behind the massively popular Baby Shark IP (and that earworm of a song), is making its first foray into podcasting with a slate of original shows exclusively available on Apple Podcasts.
Launching this Tuesday, the slate includes eight podcasts available in English and Korean on two different Apple Podcasts channels. The English-language channel caters toward a global audience and features three podcasts: The Best Pinkfong Baby Shark Kids Story, My Favorite Pinkfong Baby Shark Musical Story and Exclusive Pinkfong Baby Shark Book Adventure. The Korean-language channel has five podcasts.
The shows were created by early childhood education experts, according to Apple, and have episodes that explore subjects like dinosaurs and the constellations. New episodes release every Tuesday at 3 p.m. PST.
Pinkfong is also following other children’s audio programming studios like Wondery Kids in offering an audio subscription to its content. Subscribers to Pinkfong Baby Shark+, which costs $2.99 a month, will receive exclusive access to the fairy tale–focused Book Adventure show, as well as early access to episodes and weekly bonus content.
The slate of podcasts is the latest expansion of the Baby Shark IP, which first gained popularity when Pinkfong posted a song and music video featuring a family of cartoon sharks to YouTube in 2016. Thanks to its catchy beat and simplistic lyrics, the song was a popular hit among kids and gained more mainstream traction in the U.S. as dance challenges to the song picked up on social media and celebrities like James Corden, Sophie Turner and Josh Groban performed covers of the song on late night TV.
Paramount (then Viacom) soon got in on the Baby Shark IP through its Nickelodeon arm with a Baby Shark animated series for preschoolers; the first season premiered in 2020, while the second season is currently airing. A Baby Shark movie from Nickelodeon and Pinkfong is also set to premiere later this year with a stacked voice cast featuring Kimiko Glenn, Cardi B, Offset, Chloe Fineman, Ego Nwodim, Ashley Tisdale, Aparna Nancherla and Lance Bass, among others.
Along the way, the original YouTube video from Pinkfong has continued racking up views and is now the most-viewed YouTube video of all time with more than 12.6 billion views.
