American children's television, 2012 to 2016
NBC Kids was an American Saturday morning children's television programming block that aired on NBC from July 7, 2012 to September 25, 2016. Telemundo also aired a version of the block under the "MiTelemundo" title, which featured a separate lineup of Spanish-dubbed programs until December 31, 2017. NBC Kids, which replaced the Qubo block (as a result of NBCUniversal dropping out of the joint venture, which also included Ion Media Networks), was programmed by the other Sprout preschool cable network, as they were both targeted at children ages 2 to 6.[1]
The three-hour block featured educational entertainment series for younger children, which met programming requirements defined by the Federal Communications Commission's Children's Television Act.[2][3]
The block came to an end on September 25, 2016 on NBC (December 31, 2017 on Telemundo), and was replaced the following week with a live-action E/I block from Litton Entertainment named The More You Know, marking the end of traditional Saturday morning children's programming on broadcast television until KidsClick followed up in July 2017.
History
On March 28, 2012, NBC announced that the three-hour children's programming time period allocated by the network on Saturday mornings would be taken over by Sprout (which had become a sister television property to NBC following parent company NBCUniversal's 2010 majority purchase by Comcast; NBC later took full ownership of the network, whose owners previously included Sesame Workshop and HIT Entertainment) and launch a new Saturday morning block called NBC Kids, which was aimed at preschoolers and grade school-aged children ages 2 to 6.[4][5] Sprout also produced a Spanish-language sister block for Telemundo known as MiTelemundo.[6]
NBC Kids debuted on July 7, 2012, one week after the Qubo block ended its run on both NBC and Telemundo on June 30 (leaving Ion Television as the only network to retain a Qubo-branded children's block, as Ion Media Networks was now sole owner of the Qubo properties including the flagship Qubo Channel television service).[7]
Cancellation
On February 24, 2016 and March 1, 2017, NBCUniversal announced that NBC Kids would be discontinued and replaced on October 8, 2016 on NBC (January 6, 2018 on Telemundo) by The More You Know, a block produced by Litton Entertainment that would feature live-action documentary and lifestyle programs aimed at pre-teens and teenagers. The move came as part of a shift by broadcast television networks towards using their Saturday morning lineup solely to comply with the educational programming requirements mandated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), along with the cultural shift towards cable and online video on demand viewing of children's and animated programming. NBC Kids aired for the final time on September 25, 2016 on NBC (December 31, 2017 on Telemundo). MiTelemundo continued with its prior format until January 6, 2018, when Telemundo relaunched MiTelemundo with Spanish-language dubs of The More You Know's programming.[8][9]
