Cookie Jar TV needs to CHANGE or DIE!

The FCC does require the broadcast networks to air a certain amount of E/I programming a day, but that has nothing to do with the current state of Saturday morning TV on broadcast television. It has more to do with the alphabet networks' unwillingness to compete in the Saturday morning market. Over the years, the alphabet networks have gotten lazy and unwilling to compete with the onslaught of cable/satellite and the internet, so they would rather just turn that air time over to 3rd parties like Qubo and Cookie Jar to fill up with their specific programming blocks rather than produce their own SatAM fare.

The FCC didn't force the broadcast networks to stop producing their own shows, they opted out of the race themselves. So if anyone wants to blame someone for the current state of SatAM on the alphabet channels, don't blame the FCC, blame the networks themselves for not wanting to stick it out.
 
Not really all that plain and simple.

Here's the meat of the Children's Television Act of 1990:

- Adopt several public information initiatives designed to give parents greater information about the core educational programs being aired by TV stations (these initiatives are explained in greater detail below).

- Set forth a clear definition of what type of programs qualify as core programs: they generally must have serving the educational and informational needs of children as a significant purpose; be aired between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.; be a regularly scheduled weekly program; and be at least 30 minutes in length.

- Establish a guideline that calls for every full-service TV station to air at least three hours per week of core educational programming.

In 1996, it got refined:

- The programming must have a significant purpose. Education need not be the only one.

- Commercial broadcasters must provide the educational and informational objective of core programming in writing. The report will indicate a specific target age group for core programs.

- Core programming may only be aired between 7:00 AM and 10:00 PM.

- The program must be regularly scheduled so that it can be published in program guides consistently.

- Substantial Length - 30 minutes or more

Notice what's missing in all of that? The fact that the e/i programming had to be seen only on Saturday mornings.

Technically speaking, there's only one rule about scheduling:

Core programming may only be aired between 7:00 AM and 10:00 PM.

This means that e/i programming didn't have to be limited to Saturday mornings or even Sunday mornings. The networks just CHOOSE to put their e/i programming on weekend mornings only. Truth be told, they could easily put on an hour of e/i programming on, for example, 8 PM on a Wednesday night or even a half-hour show at, say, 7:30 PM on Sunday night. Or even schedule a couple of hours (8 - 10 PM) on Saturday nights. It's not like the broadcasters are doing anything with that slot. There just has to be three hours of e/i programming on broadcast television. There's no rule stating that all of those hours had to be on weekend mornings nor a rule stating that they could put one or all of those hours on their prime-time slot. If the FCC wanted it to be a stronger law, they would have made a mandate that one of the three hours had to be on a prime-time slot between Monday and Friday.

But they wouldn't do that. It'd cut into prime-time revenue.

The fact is that Saturday mornings has become a convenient sacrifice to appease the FCC gods, and yet, they're wondering why ratings are so low. Plus, getting third-party content providers like 4Kids, the qubo partnership, and Cookie Jar to do the dirty work just shows how lazy the networks really are. That laziness created an environment that has Nickelodeon dominating the cablescape. Broadcasters whine, but they fail to understand and realize that it's their own fault.
 
Cookie Jar TV's new Fall schedule is crappier than the current schedule.

A hour of Doodlebops reruns, a hour of Sabrina reruns (they have Sabrina's Secret Life), and a hour of Busytown Mysteries reruns. Man, what happened to Peter Pepper's Pet Spectacular? I'm tired of Sabrina:TAS (let alone the show itself) being the only DiC show airing. How about The Littles?

And what about all the other Cookie Jar E/I shows they could air in their huge library? Hell, any Cookie Jar E/I show is fine with me, but they didn't. None of the shows are even new, which is damaging enough.
 
Wow, that is lame. I learned on this very site that Cookie Jar TV is losing Strawberry Shortcake to The Hub this fall, but still, there are too many other E/I shows out there for CJTV to only air 3 of them.
 
But isn't there going to be new Busytown Mysteries episodes on Kids CBC in Canada for 2010 before they air in the USA on CBS Cookie Jar TV?

I bet THIS TV's Cookie Jar Toons weekdays and weekend for the 2010-2011 TV season is the same as the 2009-2010 TV season and could be even crappier as well (except for Wimzie's House and Country Mouse/City Mouse Adventures).
 
Well, that's kind of complicated, as American Greetings owns the series outright, and it was one of the few remnants remaining when they, DiC, and AOL's KOL division managed CBS's Saturday AM lineup. AG licensed the franchise to Hasbro, who's retooling the series for their own network The Hub. Strawberry Shortcake's days on Cookie Jar TV and possibly Jaroo may be numbered, but stranger things have happened.

I mean, Iron Man's a prominent character on four different shows (the returning Super Hero Squad, the returning Iron Man: Armored Adventures, the upcoming Avengers, and the upcoming Iron Man anime series) while Batman plays a role in two different shows (the returning Batman: Brave and the Bold and the upcoming Young Justice [not addressing any rumors until they're actually confirmed]).The world could probably handle two Strawberry Shortcake series.
 
Actually, the Doodlebops show currently on Cookie Jar TV is the 'Doodlebops Rockin Road Show' which is different from the earlier shows because it is a cartoon. I do hope they add the original Doodlebops, too.

Another reason for the all-reruns line-up for the coming season is the financial difficulties surrounding Cookie Jar themselves: When even they could not afford to air new episodes of ANYTHING for the coming season, they might be near bankruptcy!

There is another SatAM block I am worried about, but that is for another thread!

Jeremy.
 
Jeremy, I think you need to take these things a little less seriously. Blocks in general aren't a big deal...it's just a few shows being clustered together at the same time, not life or death...and this is a block aimed at very young children.
 
Quoth the Joker: "Why so serious?"

Dude, we're talking about E/I programming blocks aimed at little kids. It's really not that big a deal. Certainly not worth getting so worked up about, especially someone who's clearly outside of these blocks' target demographic. Seriously, chill.
 
Yes, in that regards, Cookie Jar is quite lazy. They have older library shows, but people (i.e. networks) largely want newer fare rather than older shows. They'll produce three shows and air them ad nauseum. However, and this is off the top of my head, they could add something like, say, Liberty's Kids, Will and Dewitt, The Littles, Madeline, and Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings (the latter of which would actually be a kind of homecoming considering it was once shown on CBS's marquee Saturday morning franchise Captain Kangaroo), still be e/i, and actually have variety,

Qubo does have an advantage of being an assembly of content providers (Classic Media, Scholastic, Nelvana, and NBC Universal) and one disadvantage in the form of the majority owner, ION Media, which owns the actual digital channel but imposes its own viewpoint on the shows that airs on both the network and the NBC/Telemundo blocks.

Truth be told, you're letting a block aimed towards preschoolers worry you, Jeremy.

Relax.
 
As for another Cookie Jar property not on the CBS Cookie Jar TV lineup nor the This TV Cookie Jar Toons lineup: The Cookie Jar produced Marc Brown's Arthur airing on PBS Kids starts its 14th. season on October 11, 2010 with 5 new 1/2 hour episodes (One episode will feature a new character that was done by the winner of the Arthur/CVS create a character contest a few years back) airing during the month of October (2 of them to be aired during Halloween week) and 5 more 1/2 hour episodes airing in Spring 2011.
 
That is probably why Cookie Jar is seemingly giving the CBS block little-or-no attention at all: They are not giving the block any new episodes of ANYTHING! They did not even give us an official press release yet regarding Cookie Jar TV's fall line-up!

Jeremy.
 
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