Southeast Asian streaming platform iflix has picked up Canadian distributor DHX Media’s kids comedy, Endangered Species.

The kids acquisition comes as iflix rolls out its download-to-go feature, upping its advantage ahead of the regional roll out of PCCW’s Viu in early 2016 and the imminent arrival of Netflix across the region.

Iflix has called the download option a “gamechanger” and says it is “one of the first and only subscription streaming services in the world to offer this feature on this scale”.

The 52x11 mins Endangered Species, which has also been sold to Daekyo Kids TV in South Korea, follows Pickle, Merl and Gull – a bunny, a squirrel and a seagull – who might not seem high on the protected species list, but who are constantly on the verge of catastrophic extinction through comical misadventure.

The series was originally commissioned by Corus Entertainment’s Teletoon in Canada.

The Asia agreements are part of the seven deals DHX has sealed for the show ahead of this year’s Asia TV Forum, which opens in Singapore on 3 December.

The downloads, offered at no additional cost, cover thousands of TV episodes and movies, including exclusive titles such as Mr. Robot and Fargo.

Content can be downloaded as low, medium or high quality files to accommodate device storage capacity.

“Download and Watch Offline… represents a huge competitive leap forward for iflix,” said group chief executive Mark Britt.

Iflix is available in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, so far, and said it has more than 850,000 subscribers.

In the Philippines, Iflix is offered as part of telco PLDT’s broadband platform, Home, which claims a 70% market share. Premium Home subscribers are given iflix at no extra cost as part of their broadband bundles in terms of a strategic agreement announced in June this year.

This article first appeared in ContentAsia's eNewsletter, 23 November 2015.