2006 was a change year in network television in general. UPN was going away, the Wb was going away. The parent company of CBS and UPN had broken away from Viacom (or the old Viacom became CBS Corp and a new Viacom was formed). CBS and Warner the owners of UPN and the WB created a new network called the CW. Also Fox created a new network for their UPN stations called My Network TV. Our story takes us the broadcast networks children's TV broadcast block.
This is a story of three networks... this is a story of a block that has a stranger, maybe slightly positive ending. We have to go back to 1998 for a moment. PAX TV was launched it was named after it's creator Lowell Bud Paxson, the creator of HSN. It was a collection of UHF tv stations and brought in religious and family programming it's viewers. They had a block for kids called PAX Kids which was programmed by DiC. (Source) The block died in 2001. It's not that PAX TV didn't find ways to run E/I programming after this it was probably the first network to just take random shows and say yeah they're educational.
In 2005, PAX TV became known as the worst named network ever, I, or the long name of I: Independent television. Or I we only air 5 hours of programming and 19 hours of infomercials. (I: Infomercials) Later in 2005, NBC ended up owning a legal 32% stake (just enough not to be too much and illegal) of the now named Ion Media Networks. Mr. Paxson would step down.
2006: Discovery Kids and NBC were to part ways this left NBC needing to find something else. (Return of TNBC people were hopin') Also NBC owned Spanish network (still do) Telemundo. There was no Disovery Kids on Telemundo. Instead, Telemundo aired "Dora the Explorer" (yes) but in Spanish, pay attention, they also aired Jacob Two-Two, and "Rugrats". At least in 2005. (Did our Nick on CBS post end up in here?)
In May 2006, something was announced. NBC, Telemundo, and I (not me) were coming together to create a new children's TV block. Fridays on I , Saturdays on NBC, and Saturdays on Telemundo but in Spanish. ( Sábado en Telemundo en español) It was marketed as "A Smart Place for Kids" I'm glad that wasn't the name, KOL Secret Slumber Party was too much for me. The block was more than just a block. Ion Media had seen that digital television with the idea of having extra channels on a feed, had thought to launch a children's channel in the space, using their large amount of channels to do it. This was back when Digital sub channels were either My Network TV/ CW stations, weather, a channel that tried to be MTV for the new times, and Retro TV. A Children's channel on Free To Air was a good idea, PBS wanted one for PBS Kids GO, but this post is already getting long to mention more about that. (source)
A name was announced , a creative name, that also could work in Spanish: Qubo. (It took us this long to make our point, and me pointing it out here is not helping)
We need programs, I wasn't a program making channel (I the network, not me) and NBC didn't have a children's department making shows anymore. So whom could they get to help? Canadian company, Corus, wanted their programs in the US and Qubo needed shows so they popped together, but wait there's more! Scholastic and Classic Media joined in. (In the future, or our present, NBC owns Classic Media now) The block was going to be targeted towards 4 to 12 year olds. (That narrows it down)
More after the jump
