Animaccord’s Masha and the Bear will this week air for the first time on TV in China.

Starting 12 March, the hit family animation will air on China Central Television’s kids’ channel CCTV14.

The deal covers season one and season two of the show, introducing audiences to its central characters.

Masha and the Bear made its debut in China earlier this year on Xigua Video, a popular Chinese video platform owned by ByteDance, the same company behind TikTok.

Season one and two, as well as the Masha’s Tales spin-off, hit the platform in January around Chinese New Year celebrations. 

^{Masha and the Bear Recipe for Disaster set the Guinness World Record as the most watched cartoon on YouTube} 

The launch was promoted with a heavyweight marketing campaign on Xigua Video and Toutiao, a popular content aggregation app also under the ByteDance umbrella.

Earlier this year, Animaccord earned Diamond Awards from YouTube for its English, Portuguese and Spanish-language YouTube channels. The award is given to channels that reach the 10 million subscriber milestone. It is the first Russian animation to earn the plaudit for foreign language channels.