Kingson

**Kingson** **(**stylized as **"KINGSON"***)* is an American basic cable and satellite television network that is owned by theViacom Media Networks division of Viacom and*Deadpan Productions,* headquartered in New York City, New York. It was founded by Ralf Hat and launched on January 2, 1993.

Programming is primarily aimed torwards a younger audience from ages 4-13. But sometime later, programming began to be introduced towards teenagers 14-17 years of age. Nearly all programming are animated series created from Deadpan Productions. Since 2000, the channel also targets older teens and adults with mature content during its late night block SPEED, which is treated as a separate entity for promotional purposes and as a separate channel. A Spanish language audio track for select programs is accessible via SAP.

As of September 2016, Kingson is available to approximately 73.1 million pay television households in the United States.

## History

### Early years (1993-96)

The channel was launched on January 4, 1993, originally made as a "dump" for ended Viacom owned series at the time, particularly animated series from Nickelodeon, Kids WB, etc.

Later that year and the year after, Kingson added new original series to its show listings. About 69% of American households had Kingson available. Kingson later aired its first original series, The Misadventures of Gecko. The show had aired from 1994 and ended in 1999, with 102 episodes. It was also the most popular series on the channel at the time, which caused a huge successful effect on Kingson.

In 1996, *Instruments & Instruments* became the channel's most populous series, within youth. the series aired for six seasons (75 episodes), before ending in 2003. Also, Saturday Night Toons, a new block consited of the most popular television series on the channel, as well as other series. Kingson was able to assess the potential of certain shorts to serve as pilots for spin-off series and signed contracts with their creators to create ongoing series.

### Golden era (1997-05)

The late 1990s and early 2000s were seen as a huge successful era for Kingson. To start, in 1997, The Sherry Show, a complete spinoff of Instruments & Instruments aired. Its dark humor famed the series deeply, and turned the show into a flagship series. Supervillains and The Epic Animals in 1998 and Risky Frizz in 1999 were famed series as well.

The schedule became filled with more and more original series. Most of the acquired programming was either pushed later at midnight or taken off the channel fully. Night programming in the late 90s housed mostly television series which were usually dark or TV-PG levelled edginess (The Sherry Show for example). This midnight block was taken off the schedule in 2000, and was replaced with SPEED, a time-shift name for Kingson which primarily airs adult animated series.

More series like Fish and Shapes have sprouted up in the early 2000s.

### Reboot era (2006-11)

The channel went through an entire reboot, which changed most of the programs, schedules, and affected the ratings negatively. Many would say that Kingson became to "lose its luster" in this era.

HD formatting and better audio systems were on the rise in Kingson. The entire channel was taken off every server from the days January 15, 2006 - January 17, 2006.

### Modern Kingson (2012-present)

While Kingson isn't as popular as its "Golden era", it was much better now then its reboot which made the channel slightly unstable. New series like SpaceWar 101, Sticks Vs. Spiders, and more have premiered in the channel, as well as a new logo, a few specials, and a less stricter editing system.

By the end of 2015, Daniel Network bought some rights to old shows (and possibly upcoming) from Kingson and they were acquired from Deadpan Productions in February 2016, making Daniel Network a sister channel for Kingson.

## Broadcasting requirements

### Censorship

Kingson usually censors highly inappropriate scenes in shows. However unlike many other channels generally aimed towards a younger audience, programs on Kingson are allowed more creative freedom and rights to be expressed in different ways. This has been part of many controversies surrounding the channel.

Profanity is usually censored, but since 2013, mild uses of profane language (including the word "bitch") have been allowed to be uncensored during from 5:00 pm to 6:00 am.

Blood and gore is often edited depending on how violent content is. The Sherry Show and SpaceWar 101 have infamously gotten into multiple edits over the years the shows have aired. No references torwards real life genocides or terrorism, suicide, or extreme brutal violent acts are allowed on the channel. Other than that, Kingson has surpassed the amount of freedom a certain program may have.

#### Content ratings

In the US, Kingson allows all television content ratings (TV-Y, TV-Y7, TV-Y7-FV, TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14) excluding the TV-MA rating which is used for SPEED. Most programs in the channel are usually settled for the TV-PG rating, while ratings such as TV-14 programs are ultimately rare. Kingson allows all subratings including: D (dialogue), L (language) S (sexual exhibitions), and V (violence), but usually the certain program with a stricter rating will be edited.

### Time length

Shows on Kingson take up space in schedule, but can only range in time length from 15 minutes (commercials included) to 1 hour (commercials included), unless if it is a movie or special.

### Ratings

Ratings vary on show, time, or day, for the channel. If a has 0.20 million viewers or less, the series will either be cancelled or will go through a long hiatus, until more viewers are drawn to the series. Compared to other channels, Kingson seems to be a popular channel amongst American watchers. Though not as popular as Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon, the channel has a stable viewership which has been increasing.

## Controversies and errors

At 3 AM on the channel in 1997, during a rerun of The Misadventures of Gecko episode "*The Bear Show"*, an unexpected alert came on. The message soon played a poorly done audio of Why You Never Became A Dancer by Whitehouse. While the footage of the episode continued to play while the song was playing, the screen went black two minutes in, and in black text, the sentence "TO B3 OR NOT TO B3" was shown. Ever since the occurrence many claim that a hacker made its way into the channel, while others are convinced that the occurrence was played as a joke to "scare" whoever was watching late night broadcasting.

When The Sherry Show was allowed to air on Kingson in the morning schedule in 2000, multiple parents protested the channel, including groups such as the Parents Television Council, explaining that the show promotes intolerance and wrong behavior to children. This was one of Kingson's major controversy.

In an airing of the Risky Frizz episode, "When Bananas Banana" in 2003 the Kingson logo was accidentally put in the Northwest corner instead of the Southeast corner. It stayed in the top left corner until the next day. This happened a few times in 2004, 2008, and supposedly 2013.

On July of 2008, Kingson managed to air reruns of Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island, which first aired on the Kid's WB from 2005 to 2006. However ,due to negative reception and low ratings, the series was given a pink slip from the channel.