VeggieTales co-creator Phil Vischer was at the International Christian Retail Show this week to tell of his plans for a new mini children's network that he said could help revitalize children's departments at Christian retail stores.

Due to go live in September, Jelly Telly is an interactive online initiative that will initially offer 20 minutes of new on-demand content each day, with a weekly full-length family movie-for as little as $1 a month. That will be the minimum subscription contribution available for the service, which will also offer online games.

Vischer said he hopes that Jelly Telly will help Christian parents pass on their faith to their children and also provide an opportunity for the new generation of young Christian filmmakers that are emerging-many of them inspired by Vischer's success with VeggieTales.

The programming will include a selection of mini-shows that will enable Vischer and contributors to test a range of characters and ideas, the more popular of which could be developed further and might, in turn, end up as products available in Christian stores.

Vischer said his mustard seed approach came about because a new business model was needed. Although Christian children's videos had been hugely successful in the 1990s, they have been eclipsed by the advent of children's TV networks and feature-length DVDs, since when sales had fallen.

"For the first time in 20 years, the production of new Christian kids' programming is in decline," Vischer said.

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