PBS Kids Network (Revamped and Updated)

**PBS Kids** 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, such as KLCS in Los Angeles maintain their own locally programmed PBS Kids feed, that is independent from the nationally sourced feed.

### Network history

On September 6, 1999, PBS launched the PBS Kids Channel in several markets, in conjunction with the introduction of the PBS Kids brand to provide a unified branding for the service's children's programming offerings. The channel was launched on 33 PBS member stations: 19 of which offered PBS Kids Channel as a cable-only service, 9 which carried the channel on their digital broadcast signals in standard-definition, and 3 which carried simulcasts of the channel on their analog signals. Of the initial 27 affiliates, 16 of them planned to begin carrying PBS Kids Channel during the fall of 1999, with 11 additional stations choosing to debut it that winter.

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.

In the aftermath of DirecTV's decision to renew its funding agreement with the channel, which ended in the third quarter of 2005, PBS decided to rebranded the network on September 26 of that year. Most of the remaining stations planning 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, but later do it on a DT3 or DT4 subchannels as, PBS introduces a PBS Kids GO block

PBS rebranded the PBS Kids network on January 16, 2013. 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.[*failed verification*] A live stream of the channel was also added to the PBS Kids website and video app upon the channel's debut, which will eventually allow viewers to toggle from the program being aired to a related educational game extending the interactivity introduced by *Sesame Street*. The network is counterprogrammed from the PBS Kids block, so that the same program would not be shown on either simultaneously. PBS Kids 24/7 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 network 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.

In November 2020, PBS Kids became the terrestrial television home of select specials from the *Peanuts* animated library, under a sub-licensing agreement with Apple TV+.