I already did this one too, but I thought, if I could could clean up and make a new Nick on CBS post, might as well make a new Discovery Kids on NBC post. Many of my past ones were made at the time in 2014, when the final traditional network block was going off the air. Now, I can add more details to a post and do more. Compared to the Nick (jr) on CBS post, I really liked the Discovery Kids on NBC one, so some of the stuff from that one will end up here, but this post will be more hefty. (Anyway you can read the original one here)
Our story takes us to 1996. Discovery Communications (now known as Discovery Inc.) was expanding beyond just Discovery Channel. Then known as digital cable, the idea was to expand and add more serviced channels. Discovery was going to give viewers their programs but on more promoted platforms. Discovery was a channel that aired different aspects of programming. Science programming would also get it's own channel so Science lovers (that's a term) would get their own channel: Science Channel (Good Name) , Discovery Travel and Living, and Discovery Civilization. (The Discovery part tells you who owns them) Another market that they decided to get into was children's television. Discovery, back then, was more educational and had many child viewers either willingly or for schools watching their programming. This brings us Discovery Kids.
Discovery Kids wasn't the biggest most carried cable network , at start. By 2001, Discovery Kids maybe had about 15 million homes much less than Nick, Disney, Cartoon Network, even Fox Family.
Meanwhile, in 1992, NBC had jumped ship on children's TV. The reasons range from "Hey Saved By the Bell is doing well, let's do more of that" , the changing market place, FOX Kids chipping away, and just an change in mood. So NBC went for Teens with TNBC (get it TeenNBC) TNBC was a 3 hour block: the other hours were given to adults to create the first network Saturday morning show , the Saturday Today Show. (weee) The teen block did kind of work and it did fit with the E/I rules placed on network TV. NBC was on the forefront of knowing things were changing either by luck or really really good foresight. (Or it's their fault?)
In 2001, NBC washed their hands off the TNBC block, it's death date was set for September 2002. Because September 2002, everything was going to change. NBC, at the time, was owned by General Electric. It was also the only network (major) owned with a children's cable network or department or something. (This is before even the concept of NBC Universal) Discovery had a little issue as well, that children's channel didn't have a large audience, NBC does. Let's pop together!
Discovery was given the 10am-1pmet slot (time zones vary, my Colorado markets aired it between 8am and 11am unless a sport came on) (and the other station was 9 to Noon ) The block was maybe going to be 2.5 hours if NBC renewed their NBA rights in 2001, and they didn't .(oops) At least in 2001, NBC said the block for Teens wasn't working and something something E/I rules.. (source)
This gave a small unheard network a chance to maybe grab new eyeballs (what?) I would actually think, Discovery Kids' biggest viewing in their history, was never their own network. On October 5th, 2002 Discovery Kids on NBC first started. (wonderful)
NBC West Coast president Scott Sassa said the network couldn't reach thetarget teen audience through its primetime programming to help market and
promote its Saturday-morning schedule.
He added that he would have programmed the block with other content if not
for the Federal Communications Commission's network requirements for kids'
programming.
more after the jump
This partnership between Discovery and NBC was a good mutual one: It provided Discovery a space have more viewers than their own children's network and maybe helped it expand in cable homes because of interest and it gave NBC some E/I programming that they didn't have to make and FCC is happy because reasons.
What kind of programs did Discovery Kids have on NBC? Why are you asking me? Oh that's right. (hey that's my job) "Walking with Prehistoric Beasts" was a spin-off the popular "Walking with Dinosaurs". The program would use computer graphics (ah 2002) to see how prehistorical animals did their things, according to science! (See E/I) "Croc Files" with the Crocodile Hunter, the Late Steve Irwin. ( I wonder what that program is about?) "TLC's Operation Junkyard" a reality series for children and doing inventing. (Remember when TLC was the Learning Channel) "Endurance" which is reality game of kids doing more high skilled physical activities. "Scout's Safari" a sitcom about a girl moving to Africa and getting to be with animals and gives the viewers, real animal facts. Finally, a fun Sci-fi series called "Strange Days at Blake Holsey High" get it? Black Hole? These programs were more going after an older range of kids between the ages of 9-14. The block had a good ratings start it beat CBS. (source)
In strange case, the block did well with adults. The median age of viewers in early 2003 was 41.7 years old. Now, TNBC's late years also had similar audience age median. So, either older people liked the programs or they just didn't change the channel after the Today Show. (Take that CBS!) Adults over the age of 65 were 19% of the audience. (what?) (source)
TLC had a hit popular show called "Trading Spaces" (I love that show) so in a fun twist they decided to create a children' s spinoff called "Trading Spaces: Boys Vs. Girls" in May of 2003 airing on both NBC and Discovery Kids. The idea of the series was to do trading spaces , but with kids trading spaces and doing each others rooms and having boys play against the girls. Another series added in spring 2003 was "Adventure Camp" a series where they had kids go into a zoo and learn about animals.
These reality and documentary series, along with the sitcom and sci-fi series were part of Discovery Kids first year on the air. This wasn't too jarring to what NBC was airing for years anyway, mostly live-action Saturday morning programming. But, Discovery Kids had other plans in their plans. (Great use of English there)
Before I get to that, I do have to talk about changes in broadcast network TV. Over on ABC in 2002 of course, the Disney One Saturday Morning block was replaced with ABC Kids. The block had mostly become a space for Disney Channel series that could fit an E/I commitment to run instead of it being the space where new programs would start. "Lilo and Stitch: The Series" was the last new series to start on ABC (but also came to Disney Channel). FOX had given up and sold the time to 4Kids, and CBS had decided to re brand Nick Jr on CBS to Nick, adding Nick shows. Discovery Kids on NBC had increased children's viewing over the former TNBC, then again, Teen programming is a different audience.
In 2003, overall networks viewing for kids programming was down 8%; mostly because of more options and less TV watching. Oh, and the E/I rule. Kids WB was really the only thing still able to compete well against Nickelodeon in the same time slots. In 2003, Disney's One Too, which had lost branding after ABC Kids , was dropped from UPN and UPN got out of the network kids game, leaving it stations to do their own.
I'm going to let this part of a Variety article from 2003, say something that is great foresight.
But if the dollars don’t come in, kids’ fare could very well flunk out of the network lineup in years to come.
November 2003: For the first time since 1992, NBC was going to have animated programming. Discovery Kids had picked up and created two new animated programs. This was going to be part of a new block on Discovery Kids and the block on NBC called "Real Toons" These series were from Phase 4 , "Kenny the Shark" a show about a Tiger Shark that gave up on sea life and lives with a girl and her family and adventures happen. Meanwhile, "Tutenstein" from Porchlight was a series about a girl who befriends a child mummy. (Does her Mommy know this?) (source )
"Trading Spaces: Boys vs. Girls", "Endurance" ,"Scout's Safari", and "Strange Days..." returned in that fall as well.
The spring 2004 line up stayed mostly the same. I will point out the, longest running series with new episodes on the block was "Endurance" which ran like "Survivor" it even changed locations. Canadian series "Strange Days at Blake Holsey High" was another long runner ending in 2006. The fall 2004 line up mostly the same minus a swap of "Scout's Safari" with a new series from the producers of "Lizzie McGuire" called "Darcy's Wildlfe". This was a sitcom about a girl named Darcy, played by Sarah Paxton, who has to move to "nowhere" with her actress mother who wanted to be a vet. So of course, she gets into animal hi jinks and sitcom stuff. (source)
Tutenstien was replaced in the line up in spring of 2005, it still did reruns on Discovery Kids until that channel died in 2010. They brought back reruns of Croc Files and a new series with Jeff Corwin, these replaced the entire Real Toons block until fall 2005.
In what turned out to be the last fall for Discovery Kids on NBC, they returned the toon hour and added a new show along with bringing back reruns of "Kenny the Shark" .This new toon series was "Time Warp Trio" based off a set of books. (I love this series) It's about 3 boys, one of which gets a magic book from his uncle and ends up going on different time travel adventures as they have to try to find the book. They also meet their future granddaughters. (fun) This series was made by PBS station WGBH along with Soup 2 Nuts. It also gave viewers history lessons, since Discovery Kids on NBC was missing that.
Also from the people who made "Darcy's Wild Life" and "Are You Afraid of the Dark" a drama series called "Fight 29 Down" good thing they waited a while for a nice plane crash series. This about teenagers being stranded on an Island. This series would finish it's run on Discovery Kids the channel.
Much like how 2002 was a turning point year, it seems that 2006 was another and made all the networks (minus FOX) do something with their blocks the same year. ABC Kids last year of real "they cared action" CBS was no longer owned by Viacom (good times) and had ditched Nick(jR) ON CBS , Kids WB had ceased the finale non-PBS weekday children's block in January of 2006 and they were moving to the CW in the fall. On NBC, Discovery and NBC parted ways.
Discovery kids had grown in the 4 year period from 21 million subscribers to 45 million and must have felt confident that they didn't need NBC anymore.(source ) This might have been a bad idea to ditch in hindsight. More on that later.
Later in 2006, NBC announced they were partnering to launch a new block with Ion Media for NBC, Telemundo, and I (not me) called Qubo. So, in September of 2006 Discovery Kids on NBC signed off for the last time .
Meanwhile on Discovery Kids, the channel continued for a few more years. They tried a few more series and let most of the other series end. By 2009, Discovery had entered a phase of wanting to work with others for networks. Discovery Health was going to be replaced with a network working with Oprah, called OWN. In April of 2009, they announced they were going to work with a toy company, Hasbro, to replace Discovery Kids with a new network. (Funny a toy company doing children's TV that's new) This network was launched on October 10th 2010, called The HUB, which ran until 2014. In fact,when I first wrote the Discovery Kids on NBC piece it was still on the air. In 2014 Discovery and Habsro kind of gave up and Discovery bought up some of Hasbro's share and eventually in October, this channel's favorite month, it became Discovery Family. Currently, the channel is on the air, but they don't really care about it, it' sits there lingering, wanting....waiting for to be put out of it's misery.
Discovery Kids on NBC was probably the most creative of the blocks launched in 2002 from the non FOX networks. (KIDS WB wasn't launched in 2002 so quiet!) It brought fun E/I programming to it's viewers. It's imagining was cool with that catchy Discovery Kids on NBC signature. Sadly, it didn't last long, but it also didn't last so long that it withered away into some weird automated block. (Cough ABC Kids Cough). It was smart for Discovery Kids to try and have more exposure for their kids network when it was not the most prolific. Glad it existed and it's programming was different but interesting.
That's our lookback , tune in next time, when we take our low-rated cable channel and buy up space on ABC called: "3 hours of programming running the same episodes for 5 years and hope nobody notices".
No comments:
Post a Comment