EchoStar’s Dish Network has added BabyFirstTV, a controversial round-the- clock channel aimed at babies and toddlers, to its lineup.
Dish will offer BabyFirst on a stand-alone basis for $9.99 a month, said Eric Sahl, Dish’s senior vice president of programming, during Charlie Chat with subscribers Monday night. The satellite-TV service is offering a monthlong free preview starting Friday, he said.

Programs targeting babies have been around for years in the form of Baby Einstein and Sesame Street DVDs. Several networks, including Nickelodeon and PBS Kids Sprout, target older children. But BabyFirst is the first 24-hour network aimed at children as young as 6 months old, prompting criticism from the likes of Sen. Hillary Clinton and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

BabyFirst counters that its commercial- free programming was developed with the help of child psychologists and development experts to create a “safe, positive” environment.

“We created BabyFirstTV to provide parents with affordable and age-appropriate content - offering new opportunities to interact with their children,” said Sharon Rechter, executive vice president, business development and marketing and one of BabyFirstTV’s founders, in a statement.

Jody Martin, Dish’s senior vice president of marketing, said the channel emphasizes parent-child interaction and provides a welcome break from watching “the same three videos” over and over.

“No one wants to plunk their kids down in front of the TV,” Martin said. “They want the right content to interact with their child.”

Douglas County-based Dish, the third-largest pay-TV provider with about 12 million customers, joins larger rival DirecTV in offering BabyFirst. The Los Angeles-based network was started by investment fund ****co Capital, Regency Enterprises and Netherlands and Israel-based investment group Kardan.