PBS Kids

PBS Kids (stylized as PBS KIDS) is the branding used for nationally-distributed children's programming carried by the U.S. public television network PBS. The brand encompasses a daytime block of children's programming carried daily by most PBS member stations, a 24-hour channel carried on the digital subchannels of PBS member stations (sometimes called the PBS Kids Channel or PBS Kids 24/7), and its accompanying digital platforms.
PBS Kids programming typically targets children between the ages of 2 and 8, with a focus on live-action and animated series featuring educational and informative (E/I) components; some of its programs were developed under grants with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as part of PBS and CPB's "Ready-to-Learn" initiative. From 2004 to 2013, a late-afternoon sub-block known as PBS Kids Go! broadcast programming targeting elementary school-aged viewers 6 to 8; the brand was discontinued in 2013 to focus more on the main PBS Kids brand.
PBS Kids was first introduced in 1999, succeeding a precursor—PTV—which was first introduced in 1994 on selected PBS stations as a blanket branding for the network's array of existing children's programming (such as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Sesame Street). The introduction of PBS Kids coincided with a larger investment into children's programming by the organization, and a PBS Kids channel that would be distributed via a mixture of cable, satellite, and digital terrestrial television platforms. However, the channel proved unsuccessful and shut down in 2005.
From 2005 to 2013, PBS partnered with Comcast, HIT Entertainment, and Sesame Workshop to operate an ad-supported cable network known as PBS Kids Sprout; Comcast would later acquire the network outright in 2013 via its NBCUniversal division. PBS Kids would later relaunch its 24-hour channel in 2017, operating via digital terrestrial television and streaming.
The PBS Kids block originally ran throughout the morning and afternoon on the network's national schedule; in February 2023, the block was cut from 13 to 8 hours per-day, citing shifts towards PBS Kids' digital platforms, as well as member stations who had cut back on the block to schedule more afternoon programming targeting adult viewers.
PBS had historically aired programs for children such as Sesame Street, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and Reading Rainbow; prior to 1993, these programs aired under general PBS branding. In August 1993, PBS introduced new branding for their children's programs featuring the "P-Pals", animated characters shaped like the PBS "P-head" logo who encouraged skills such as gathering information, self-esteem, cooperation and achieving goals in specially-developed interstitials.
The framework for PBS Kids was established as part of PBS' "Ready to Learn" initiative, a project intended to facilitate access of early childhood educational programming to underprivileged children. On July 11, 1994, PBS repackaged their existing children's educational programming as a new block titled "PTV", airing on 11 member stations at launch. In addition to scheduled educational programming, PTV also incorporated interstitial content with the P-Pals in their fictional world "PTV Park" for younger children. Older children were targeted with live-action and music video interstitials.
Apple Computer provided a $1.5 million grant to PTV and became its first national underwriter on June 26, 1995, as part of their "Bring Learning Home" corporate initiative. A "Ready To Learn" grant unveiled on January 8, 1996, supported the development of Dragon Tales and Between the Lions, which premiered in 1999 and 2000, respectively, as well as their online activities and outreach efforts. By September 1996, 95 PBS stations reaching three quarters of the United States were carrying the PTV service. Starting on October 7, 1996, PBS packaged their programs for school-aged children into the block The Game, airing on 31 stations by the end of the year.
On January 18, 1999, PBS announced that it would launch the PBS Kids Channel, meant to be the centerpiece of a larger initiative, in September. On June 9, PBS revealed a wide rebranding of its children's programs and services, known as PBS Kids, at its annual meeting in San Francisco. PBS would also increase its children's programming budget by 25% and commit to two new series: Caillou and Anne of Green Gables: The Animated Series.
The rebranding to "PBS Kids" first took effect on September 6, 1999, when PBS launched the 24-hour PBS Kids Channel. The new PBS Kids branding elements began rolling out on PBS stations in October; PBS provided grants to stations who adopted the new branding early. Brand designers incorporated a thought bubble concept across the brand packaging, intended to associate "imagination, thinking and using your head" with PBS Kids. Included with the new on-air appearance was a bright green logo featuring iconic boy and girl mascot characters Dash and Dot. The PBS Kids website was relaunched with some new areas on February 1, 2000.
The PBS Kids Channel was unsuccessful; in 2005, PBS entered into a commercial joint venture with Comcast, HIT Entertainment, Sesame Workshop to launch a replacement known as PBS Kids Sprout, which would be a 24-hour channel targeting a preschool audience. In the early-2010s, the partners sold their stakes in Sprout to Comcast (via subsidiary NBCUniversal), who assumed full ownership of the channel in 2013.
In October 2004, PBS Kids launched a late-afternoon sub-block known as PBS Kids Go!; this block featured programming directed at school-aged children within oldest subset of the existing PBS Kids demographic (generally ages 6 to 8). PBS had also planned to launch a dedicated PBS Kids Go! channel as a digital network in October 2006, but was later cancelled before launch. In October 2013, PBS Kids Go! was discontinued as part of a rebranding of the PBS Kids block, citing market research finding that the PBS Kids brand was more recognizable than PBS Kids Go!, and that a number of programs across both brands were being viewed widely by both preschool and school-aged viewers—making the need for a second block redundant.
PBS revived the PBS Kids Channel on January 16, 2017, this time being structured as an over-the-top and digital multicast television network with an online livestream of the channel on the PBS Kids website and video app, in addition to utilizing largely the same distribution methods that had been used for the original channel. At the time of launch, no changes were made to the main PBS Kids block on PBS. The block is counter programmed from the channel, thus the same show would not be shown at the same time on the channel and block.
In November 2020, PBS Kids, in association with the main PBS service, became the terrestrial television home of select specials from the Peanuts animated library, under a sub-licensing agreement with Apple TV+. The agreement allowed both PBS and the PBS Kids Channel to air It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and A Charlie Brown Christmas over the air, once per year. After the 2021 holiday season, the agreement with PBS ended, and since then, the Peanuts specials have not aired on American broadcast television.
On July 19, 2022, PBS Kids introduced a new brand identity by Lippincott; the rebranding incorporates aspects of the current PBS branding also developed by Lippincott, changing its logo to an electric blue circle with a tweaked version of the existing PBS Kids wordmark (which was maintained in order to preserve brand recognition for younger viewers), set in green and white. The Dash mascot was discontinued, but supplanted by a new system of customizable cartoon characters seen in promos. The characters have customizable facial features, skin tones, and disability aids to reflect a diverse youth audience and how they portray themselves.
In February 2023, a major shift in program scheduling reduced the duration of the daytime PBS Kids block on local PBS stations significantly. Previously, the PBS Kids block encompassed a much larger portion of the daytime schedule, with the national schedule consisting of 13 hours of programming both before- and after-school hours throughout the morning and afternoon. The cuts would reduce its duration to eight hours. Many PBS stations had already begun transitioning to shorter morning blocks, but this change pushed nearly all stations to shorten their daytime children's schedules to morning hours only. PBS cited changes in viewing behaviors, and decided that it was advantageous to focus their children's programming in the mornings and cater to more general audiences in the afternoons, while continuing to grow their audience on the 24/7 kids service.
As online streaming began to increase in popularity, PBS launched the PBS Kids Go! video player on its website on September 8, 2008. This federally-funded, innovative video streaming platform featured video clips from a number of PBS Kids Go! shows which rotated on a weekly basis and linked to interactive online games. The video player later expanded to include all PBS Kids programming, and the entire platform evolved into the PBS Kids Video app, which initially became publicly available for free on May 12, 2011. The PBS Kids Video app is currently the primary source for free streaming of on-demand video clips and full episodes of PBS Kids programming. The app also features a free live stream of the 24/7 PBS Kids Channel.
On May 8, 2013, PBS Kids programming was added to the Roku streaming player.
On July 1, 2016, Amazon Prime Video and PBS Distribution entered into a multi-year agreement which saw several PBS Kids series on other streaming services move to Amazon Prime Video. The PBS Kids subscription allows children and families to stream nearly all PBS Kids programs currently broadcast on air; however, notable exceptions include Sesame Street, which streams on Max, and Curious George, which streams on NBCUniversal's Peacock. The PBS Kids add-on service also includes several older series, such as Reading Rainbow, Kratts' Creatures, and It's a Big Big World.
On April 23, 2024, The Roku Channel added PBS Retro, a free ad-supported streaming channel, which consists of older PBS Kids programming, such as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Reading Rainbow.
A selection of PBS Kids brand programming is available outside of the United States through PBS Distribution, PBS International and GBH, who jointly offer a PBS Kids subscription channel and on-demand video services to international audiences.
PBS Distribution partnered with MultiChoice to launch PBS Kids on May 22, 2019, on DStv and GOtv platforms across its Sub-Saharan Africa footprint. The channel was discontinued by the end of August 2024.
PBS Distribution partnered with Foxtel to launch PBS Kids on July 1, 2021, in Australia. The channel was discontinued two years later on July 1, 2023.
For list of all PBS Kids programs, see List of programs broadcast by PBS Kids.
PBS Kids programming has historically received generally positive reviews from television critics and parents of young children. L.A. Story (a division of Blogspot) wrote, "Great for any little explorer!" Rob Owen of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote, "Best children's entertainment available". Valerie Williams of Scary Mommy wrote, "A wonderful gift". Steve Aquino of Forbes wrote, "Making learning accessible in the coronavirus age".
The PBS Kids Channel (also known as PBS Kids 24/7) is an American digital broadcast and online television network operated by the Public Broadcasting Service. The network features a broad mix of live action and animated children's programs distributed to PBS by independent companies and select member stations, which are designed for improving the early literacy, math, and social-emotional skills of young children ages 3 to 9. Some PBS member stations, most notably KLCS in Los Angeles and WDCQ-TV in Bad Axe, Michigan, maintain their own locally programmed PBS Kids feed that is independent from the nationally sourced feed.
The PBS Kids Channel has had two iterations in the age of digital television; one which existed between 1999 and 2005, and the current version which was launched in 2017.
On September 6, 1999, PBS launched a 24-hour PBS Kids network in several markets, in conjunction with the overall introduction of the PBS Kids brand to provide a unified branding for the service's children's programming offerings. The separate network (referred to as the PBS Kids Channel in press materials) was available on high-tier subscription providers, and was also offered to PBS member stations for use on a "cablecast" service (a subscription-based local channel provided by the member station) or for use on the member station's free-to-air analog channel to provide a portion of the daytime PBS Kids programming on the station. Participating stations were required to pay an annual fee of $1,000 to use the feed. The channel was launched on over 30 PBS member stations with carriage methods ranging from a cable-only service, to a standard-definition digital subchannel, to analog simulcasts. Additional affiliates would pick up the channel later throughout the fall and winter of 1999.
FCC requirements mandated satellite providers to set aside 4% of their available channel space for noncommercial educational and informational programming. With these providers limited to offering one such service per programmer, PBS had put forth PBS Kids as a prospective channel to fulfill this mandate.
The channel was largely funded by satellite provider DirecTV. It was partly created to compete against the Nick Jr. block and its sister network Noggin; at the time, Noggin was co-owned by the Children's Television Workshop (the production company behind Sesame Street) and Nickelodeon. Because the pay-TV rights to the Children's Television Workshop's programs were owned by Noggin, the channel did not broadcast CTW programming, including longtime PBS staple Sesame Street, though an exception was made with the CTW-produced Dragon Tales (which premiered on the same day as the launch of the PBS Kids Channel).
The channel was unsuccessful and had only reached 9 million households as of 2002, compared to Noggin's 23.3 million households at the time. In the aftermath of DirecTV's decision not to renew its funding agreement with the channel, which ended in the third quarter of 2005, PBS decided to shut down the network on September 26 of that year. The PBS Kids Channel was effectively supplanted on that date by PBS Kids Sprout, an advertiser-supported cable and satellite channel that PBS developed in a joint venture with Sesame Workshop, HIT Entertainment and Comcast (the latter of which later bought full control of the network via NBCUniversal).
PBS gave local stations an option to sign on PBS Kids Sprout promoters, providing them cross-promotional and monetary benefits in exchange for giving up the ability to carry a competing preschool-targeted channel. For example, PBS member station WBGU-TV aired promotional spots for PBS Kids Sprout during their PBS Kids daytime block, thereby forfeiting their eligibility to air a children's channel locally. 80 stations, making up about half of the member stations participants, signed up to be promoters; most of the remaining stations opted to develop independent children's programming services featuring programs distributed by PBS and through outside distributors such as American Public Television to fill space on digital subchannels that formerly served as PBS Kids Channel members. Many of the member stations that launched children's-focused subchannel or cable-only services reduced the amount of sourced programming from PBS Kids carried on their primary channel to a few hours of their weekday daytime schedules, in order to program more adult-targeted fare during the afternoon.
The closure of the PBS Kids Channel left many local PBS stations with a vacancy on their multicast digital channel offerings, during a time when digital and high-definition broadcasts were increasing reach and gaining popularity. In April 2006, PBS announced plans for a replacement 24-hour digital multicast network called the PBS Kids Go! Channel. This would expand upon the afternoon PBS Kids Go! block on PBS, with additional new content and reruns of returning programs, such as HIT Entertainment's Wishbone and Kratts' Creatures. Other exclusive content for this channel would include a one-hour Spanish-language block called "PBS Kids Vayan!" (Spanish for "Go!", which would air select shows in Spanish with English subtitles), an evening "Go! Family" block, and an educational "Go! Figure" school block.
The PBS Kids Go! Channel was originally set to launch in October 2006. However, stations found that the sliding scale licensing fees were too high for what little exclusive programming they would have received, especially after spending additional funds for the PBS HD feed. With only one-third of PBS stations initially committing to carry the new network, the plans for the channel were ultimately withdrawn.
On February 23, 2016, PBS announced that the 24/7 PBS Kids Channel would be revived after 11 years. PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger stated that during PBS's partnership with Comcast in their operations of Sprout, PBS had discovered the valuable position in children's programming during prime time.
Originally set for a fall 2016 relaunch, the PBS Kids Channel was officially relaunched on January 16, 2017. Structured as a multi-platform service, it was made available for distribution to digital subchannels of participating PBS member stations, initially launching on 73 member stations (counting those operated as subregional PBS member networks), with an additional 34 agreeing to begin carrying the network at a later date. A free online live stream of the PBS Kids Channel was also added to the PBS Kids website and video app upon the channel's debut, allowing viewers to toggle from the program being aired to a related educational game extending the interactivity introduced by Sesame Street. The live stream also provides access to the 24/7 channel even in areas where some local PBS stations, such as WUFT in Gainesville, Florida and WEIU-TV in Charleston, Illinois, do not carry it on its subchannels. The PBS Kids Channel is also available on both DirecTV and DirecTV Stream on channel 288.
The PBS Kids Channel is counterprogrammed from the PBS Kids block on PBS, so that the same program would not be shown on either simultaneously. It mainly features double-runs of existing series on PBS Kids' schedule (including some not carried on the primary channels of certain member stations); as such, no additional programs had to be acquired to help fill the channel's schedule. On April 21, 2017, the channel launched "PBS Kids Family Night," a weekly block on Friday evenings (with encore airings on Saturday and Sunday evenings) that showcase themed programming, premieres or special "movie-length" episodes of new and existing PBS Kids children's programs.