Children's television series

Children's television shows are television programs designed for and marketed to children, normally aired during the morning and afternoon hours, mainly before and after school. The purpose of the show is mainly to entertain and sometimes to educate the young audience about basic life skills or ideals.

U.S. television

History of U.S. children's television

In the USA, most early children's programming ran during the late afternoon, or during otherwise-unused timeslots on weekend mornings. As time went on, Saturday morning became the most popular time for non-educational children's programming, and by the 1970s, all three major US networks had a full schedule of children's programs running in this space.

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At the same time, as locally originated live-action children's programming fell out of style with the network affiliates (who filled the slots with cheaper syndicated programming, or more profitable news shows), the independent stations filled the gap by scheduling cartoons (usually reruns of Saturday morning fare, or public domain copies of old Paramount or Warner Bros. shorts) in these afternoon time slots. By the early 1980s, the afternoon time slot was nearly as popular as Saturday morning was, and first-run programming (such as The Transformers and G.I. Joe) began to appear. Even Disney stepped into the fray eventually, premiering their first syndicated cartoon (DuckTales) in 1987.

Related Topics:
Syndicated - News - Independent station - Public domain - Paramount - Warner Bros. - The Transformers - G.I. Joe - DuckTales

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The 1980s and early 1990s also saw the rise of Saturday morning's biggest competition yet:

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• Nickelodeon was the first cable network to cater directly to children, and as it got carried on more and more cable systems, it took away more and more viewers from the broadcast networks. Nick's biggest selling point was that, unlike syndicated and Saturday morning programs, viewers could watch their favorite shows practically any time they wanted. Nickelodeon's programming during this period was mostly live action (though they did run cartoons produced by others during the midday "Pinwheel" block during the 1980s), but it introduced its own line of original cartoons (Nicktoons) in 1991.
• In 1990, the upstart Fox Network entered the kids-TV market. By 1993, Fox Kids had hits in ', Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and Animaniacs.
• Turner Broadcasting, having recently acquired Hanna-Barbera Productions from their bankrupt previous owners, used the combined H-B and MGM libraries to form the basis of the Cartoon Network, which launched in October 1992. As with Nickelodeon, the ability to watch a cartoon anytime was the main attraction.

By this time, NBC had replaced its Saturday morning schedule with The Today Show and teen-oriented live-action shows. ABC continued to run cartoons in their Saturday morning block throughout the 1990s; after their acquisition by Disney, the block became mostly Disney-originated under the "One Saturday Morning" banner. CBS later followed suit; however, they later merged with Nickelodeon's corporate parent Viacom, and CBS now offers a block of Nickelodeon's educationally-oriented programming on Saturday mornings.

Related Topics:
NBC - The Today Show - ABC - CBS - Viacom

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Cartoon Network introduced its own line of cartoons in 1996 with the World Premiere Toons/What-a-Cartoon! project, which spawned Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls, among others.

Related Topics:
1996 - World Premiere Toons/What-a-Cartoon! - Dexter's Laboratory - The Powerpuff Girls

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Fox Kids fell on hard times in the late 1990s, after Warner Bros. (which had produced some of its biggest hits) broke ties with it, and the popularity of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers began to wane. By this time, Fox had merged Power Rangers producer Saban Entertainment and the former Marvel Productions (which used to be Saturday morning fixture DePatie-Freleng Enterprises) into Fox Kids, and in 2000, most of Fox Kids' assets were put up for sale. Disney won the bid, acquiring all of the Saban assets and Fox Kids' international operations. Left without a programming block, Fox subcontracted their Saturday morning timeslots to 4Kids Entertainment, and gave the new block the Fox Box brand, later renamed to 4Kids TV.

Related Topics:
Saban Entertainment - DePatie-Freleng Enterprises - 4Kids Entertainment - 4Kids TV

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