Okto

Okto is a Singaporean children's programming block broadcast by Mediacorp's Channel 5 in English and Channel 8 in Mandarin Chinese.

The brand originally operated as a standalone free-to-air 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 programming had been concurrently spun off as the new channel Vasantham). 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 Vasantham. The name Okto was derived from the Greek numeral for "eight", as the channel was on StarHub TV channel 8 (the former EPG slot and channel allotments of the defunct Channel i) 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 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.