4Kids TV

"The Game Station" logo used from September 8, 2007 to December 27, 2008
Network	Fox
Launched	September 14, 2002 (2002-09-14)
Closed	December 27, 2008 (2008-12-27)
Country of origin	United States
Owner	News Corporation 4Kids Entertainment
Formerly known as	FoxBox (2002–2005)
Original language	English

4Kids TV (often stylized as4K!DSTV and formerly known asFoxBox from September 14, 2002 to January 15, 2005) was an Americantelevision programming block andInternet-basedvideo on demand children's network operated byNews Corporation and4Kids Entertainment. It originated as a weekly block onSaturday mornings on theFox network, which was created out of a four-year agreement reached on January 22, 2002, between 4Kids Entertainment and Fox to lease the five-hour Saturday morning time slot occupied by the network's existing children's program block,Fox Kids. It was targeted at children aged 7–11.^[1] The 4Kids TV block was part of the Fox network schedule, although it wassyndicated to other broadcasttelevision stations in certain markets where a Fox affiliate declined to air it.^[2]

The block aired a preview special on September 1, 2002, and was formally launched on September 14, 2002, under the nameFoxBox, ajoint venture between News Corporation and 4Kids Entertainment,^[3][4] replacingFox Kids, which the network announced it would discontinue as a result of the 2001 purchase ofFox Family Worldwide byThe Walt Disney Company (which resulted in much of the content featured on the block moving to Disney's networks and blocks).^[5] The block was rebranded as4Kids TV on January 22, 2005.^[6] 4Kids Entertainment was fully responsible for the content of the block and collected all of the advertising revenue accrued from it.^[2] However, Fox'sstandards and practices department still handled content approval and responsibility of editing the series to meet FCC broadcast standards.

The programming block aired on Saturday mornings in most areas of theUnited States, though some stations carried it on Sundays (often due to scheduling conflicts resulting from the block airing on stations affiliated with other minor networks that had their own older children's anime program blocks which competed with FoxBox/4Kids TV, including theKids' WB onThe WB and laterThe CW, and for its first year, theDisney's One Too block onUPN). On October 2, 2007, 4Kids Entertainment announced it would program a competing Saturday morning lineup for The CW, the new block, The CW4Kids (later renamedToonzai, with the original name becoming a secondary brand), premiered on May 24, 2008, replacing theKids' WB programming block, which had been carried over to The CW from one of its predecessors,The WB, when it launched on September 23, 2006. The block was renamed asToonzai on August 14, 2010, and continued to air until it ended August 18, 2012, being replaced byVortexx a week later and the block continued to air until it ended on September 27, 2014.^[7][8]

On November 10, 2008, 4Kids Entertainment announced that 4Kids TV would conclude at the end of the year due to intervening conflicts between Fox and 4Kids, as the latter company had not paid the network for the time lease for some time, while the network was unable to maintain the guaranteed 90% clearance for the block due to affiliate refusals and an inability to secure secondary affiliates to carry the programming in markets where the Fox station denied clearance for the block. 4Kids TV ended on December 27, 2008, ending Fox's nearly two-decade commitment to children's animation programming.^{[9][failed verification]} Fox announced that the four-hour time period would no longer be used for children's programming, owing that it was no longer viable due to the insurmountable competition from children'scable channels (such asNickelodeon,Cartoon Network, andDisney Channel).^[10] On January 3, 2009, the network gave two hours of the programming time that the 4Kids TV block occupied back to its affiliates, while the other two hours would be retained by the network for apaid programming block titledWeekend Marketplace, which replaced 4Kids TV on January 3, 2009.^[11] The 4KidsTV logo now only exists as theclosing logo for 4Kids Entertainment for shows produced by the company distributed outside of theUnited States (particularly those made before the 2012 auction of most of 4Kids' assets toSaban Brands).

Fox would reverse course and indirectly resume airing children's programming for the first time since 4Kids TV ended through an agreement announced on December 17, 2013, when it signed a deal withSteve Rotfeld Productions to launchXploration Station, a two-hour block of live-action educational programs focused on theSTEM fields, which debuted on September 13, 2014. As the block accounts for two of the three weekly hours of educational programming required by theFederal Communications Commission'sChildren's Television Act, the Fox affiliates that opted against airing 4Kids TV, Fox Kids, orWeekend Marketplace (including thoseowned by the network that were acquired through its 1996 merger withNew World Communications and those acquired through that deal that were owned byTribune Broadcasting, nowNexstar Media Group) elected to runXploration Station as it is an E/I-compliant lineup syndicated primarily to the network's affiliates, relieving them of taking on the full burden of purchasing educational programming aimed at children from thesyndication market (although some Fox stations, including those owned by theSinclair Broadcast Group—the vast majority of its stations had carried Fox's previous children's blocks, decided to decline the block anyway due to existing commitments to syndicated programs compliant with Children's Television Act recommendations).^[12][13]

As of 2024, some former 4Kids TV shows (such asChaotic (only in Spanish),Dinosaur King,G.I. Joe: Sigma 6, and various entries in theYu-Gi-Oh! franchise) are made available to stream via the free ad-supportedTubi streaming service, which launched on April 1, 2014 and was later acquired byFox Corporation (which had recently been spun off from21st Century Fox followingthat company’s acquisition by Disney one year prior in March 2019) on April 20, 2020.^[14][15] Outside of Tubi,Sonic X is available onAmazon Prime Video,Hulu,Pluto TV, andCrackle respectively, though the latter service only carries seasons 1 and 2. Netflix also carried the first two seasons ofSonic X between December 2019 and December 2024. In addition,Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is made available to stream on both the free ad-supportedPluto TV and subscription-basedParamount+ streaming services owned byParamount Skydance following that property's 2009 acquisition byNickelodeon, while various entries in theYu-Gi-Oh! franchise and the English-language version ofChaotic are onNBCUniversal'sPeacock streaming service.

‡ - Program transitioned to 4Kids TV

† - Program transitioned from FoxBox

4Kids launched an online video player on its website on September 8, 2007, and gradually added full-length episodes as well as additional video clips and online-exclusive content.^[26]

The block had a somewhat infrequent relationship to the Fox network. The programming was produced for Fox and offered to the network'sowned-and-operated stations andaffiliates first, so the Fox station in any given area had theright of first refusal. In the event that a Fox affiliate or in some cases, an O&O of the network—opted not to carry 4Kids TV, the block then became available for the local broadcast rights to be acquired by another television station. In fact, it was due in part to these carriage ambiguities that 4Kids dissolved the block in 2008, as they had been promised clearance on at least 90% of Fox's stations.

Most of Fox's owned-and-operated stations opted to carry 4Kids TV (these were mainly stations that had been owned by the network since Fox launched in October 1986 or were Fox charter affiliates that Fox Television Stations had acquired since that point). However dating back to the existence of the Fox Kids block, the twelve stations that Fox acquired from New World Communications in 1996^[27] (and had earlier affiliated with the network through a1994 multi-station affiliation deal^[28]—which prior to then, had been affiliated withABC,NBC, orCBS) generally did not air 4Kids TV. In some of the New World markets, 4Kids was not carried on any station. In a majority of these markets, an independent station carried the block; in others, it was carried by either a WB orUPN affiliate, and later aMyNetworkTV or CW affiliate. The only exception was inSt. Louis, Missouri, where Fox O&O (now affiliate)KTVI carried the block (although it aired 4Kids TV two hours earlier than the network's recommended scheduling for the block, beginning at 5:00 a.m., due to the station's Saturday morning newscast).

Some of 4Kids TV's programming (such asWinx Club,The Adrenaline Project,Magical DoReMi,Stargate Infinity, reruns ofBack to the Future: the Animated Series, andCubix) met the criteria to be considerededucational and informational under the requirements defined by the Children's Television Act, and counted toward the three-hour-per-week mandatory educational children's programming quotas outlined by the Federal Communications Commission.

Note: These CW affiliates ran 4Kids TV on Sundays, due to their obligation to carry their primary network's children's lineup on Saturday as scheduled.^[29]

• 4Kids Entertainment
• Toonzai – children's program block produced by 4Kids for The CW from May 24, 2008 to August 18, 2012.

• Fox
• IMDb page for "The Fight for the Fox Box": a half-hour television special featuring multiple crossovers from various FoxBox shows.

• Fox Kids
• 4Kids Entertainment
• Television syndication packages
• Television channels and stations disestablished in 2008
• Television channels and stations established in 2002
• Television programming blocks in the United States

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