An itsy bitsy business: CEO talks about bringing TV to toddlers.

If you're a parent, you've no doubt heard of Teletubbies by now. The surreal show featuring four brightly-colored babbling sprites has been the talk of the preschool set in the U.K. for more than a year now, and the Teletubbies dolls were the best selling toy in the U.K. last Christmas. In April, the series made the trip across the Atlantic, encountering some choppy water in the form of observations about the program's trippy quality and debate as to whether preverbal children should watch TV. But the babies and toddlers who are the show's target audience have had no such qualms: Teletubbies, which airs on nearly every PBS station in the U.S., debuted with ratings equal to or better than those of behemoth Barney and within a month was one of the 10 highest rated children's series.

The company that engineered this transatlantic move has an appropriately silly name: The itsy bitsy Entertainment Company. And it has a president and CEO, Kenn Viselman, who makes unusual statements and sounds sincere doing it. He explained that when he founded the company in 1995, the idea "was to try to create a place that parents could feel safe." He then admitted: "It sounds a little stupid I think, even when I say it to myself out loud." The goal was to import programs that were performing well in other countries, but only those shows that parents would feel were good for their children and that children would like in spite of that fact. "It's almost like Life cereal," Viselman explained: "You know, Mikey likes it and it's good for you." Itsy bitsy is not driven by altruism, however. "There was a point where I realized in my own life that you didn't have to make money at the expense of kids," Viselman said, "that you could actually make stuff that kids loved and make money doing it at the same time."

In spite of the avowals of a profit motive, itsy bitsy has shown surprising restraint when it comes to the licensing side of the business. The company, which does both U.S. TV sales and U.S. merchandising for the programs it handles, at first released only four toys for Teletubbies: the four talking Teletubby dolls. Roughly 35 additional licenses have been signed, but those products just started to roll out in September. "We've been ... doing a very slow, natural build for this project," Viselman said. "I have so many people upset with us, because we didn't bring it out faster and we didn't put out more products. Retailers are up in arms with us." To the question of whether this is a profitable way to conduct a licensing campaign, the answer was an adamant "no." "It'd be a lot more profitable if I just let the rivers open. But we've really tried to make a commitment to the child and their caregiver, even at the expense of my relationships with retailers and manufacturers," Viselman commented. Wary of the children's show that exists just to push product, itsy bitsy has also limited the rollout of toys for Tots TV, a preschool series produced by Ragdoll Productions, which also produces Teletubbies. At press time, Tots TV had only a few licenses, although more products will hit toy store shelves as the series switches from weekly to daily PBS airings this fall.

Itsy bitsy introduced another show, Noddy, based on the Enid Blyton books, in the U.S. in September. The company also handles some children's book and pure licensing lines. While still small, itsy bitsy isn't as itsy bitsy as it used to be: what was initially a company run by Viselman and an assistant out of his living room has grown to 30 employees, and the company is looking for office space in South America and Los Angeles to supplement its New York and Canada offices.

How did itsy bitsy get involved in Teletubbies, the series that brought the small company into the public eye? Viselman met Anne Wood, the creator and co-producer of Teletubbies, several years ago, and the two agreed that Viselman would represent all of her work in the Americas. When Wood later presented the rough idea for Teletubbies, Viselman was gung-ho: "Knowing her as I do, and knowing her ability to understand youth, I knew that it was going to be something that I would want to be involved with." He confessed, "We all had some concerns: 'Is this just too far out for people to understand?'"

While children seem to have no trouble understanding it, the same has not been true of adults. According to Viselman, many parents objected to the fact that the Teletubbies speak baby talk. "The truth is, baby talk is actually very good for kids," Viselman maintained, explaining that the baby talk on the show sparks recognition in young viewers, encouraging them to make their own sounds and thus to speak earlier. "Everything about this show was choreographed," he said, adding that linguists and speech pathologists were enlisted to ensure that the Teletubbies sound like the average burbling babe.

Since Teletubbies is arguably the first TV show directed at an audience younger than two years old, it has sparked an even bigger controversy: Should such young children be watching television at all? Viselman's response is similar to that used by proponents of condom distribution to teenagers ("they are having sex whether we like it or not, so we'd better make it safe for them"), and like that defense it is both reasonable and likely to draw fire. "Parents put their children in front of television; it doesn't matter what you say, doesn't matter how you feel about it, doesn't matter what your personal, political position will be," Viselman pointed out. "Some parents use television as a baby sitter, some use it as wallpaper. Teletubbies is not that. Teletubbies is a show that the youngest viewer can interact with and be engaged by. Parents are like, 'Thank god, I can do it and not feel guilty now.' Maybe they should feel guilty. Maybe they shouldn't. ... It's not my responsibility."

What next for the company that stirred up so much buzz, positive and negative, with a quartet of furry babies? Viselman said that although he never envisioned getting involved in production, he now thinks that funding co-productions and having an equity in the programs will be important for itsy bitsy in the long term. But he added that the company's goals are not so different from what they were three years ago: "Recently we went back to read our company's mission statement, to see how we wanted to update it. And I don't. We didn't. Not a word. ... For us, it's about doing great stuff for young kids and finding a way to allow them to explore their worlds ... . That's really truly all that I want to do."