 | |
| Type | Television network Programming block |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Broadcast area | National |
| Network |
|
| Affiliates | List of Qubo affiliates |
| Headquarters | West Palm Beach, Florida |
| Programming | |
| Languages | English Spanish (Telemundo block; also asSAP option on Qubo Channel) |
| Picture format | 480i16:9 (SDTV) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | |
| Parent |
|
| Sister channels |
|
| History | |
| Launched | September 9, 2006; 19 years ago (2006-09-09) (programming blocks on NBC and Telemundo) September 15, 2006; 19 years ago (2006-09-15) (programming block on Ion Television) January 8, 2007; 18 years ago (2007-01-08) (network) September 8, 2020; 5 years ago (2020-09-08) (programming block on Ion Plus) |
| Closed | June 30, 2012; 13 years ago (2012-06-30) (programming block on NBC) July 1, 2012; 13 years ago (2012-07-01) (programming block on Telemundo) February 22, 2021; 4 years ago (2021-02-22) (programming block on Ion Plus) February 26, 2021; 4 years ago (2021-02-26) (network on most stations; also programming block on Ion Television) February 28, 2021; 4 years ago (2021-02-28) (network on remaining stations) |
| Links | |
| Website | qubo.com (archived 2021) |
Qubo (/ˈkjuːboʊ/KYEW-boh; stylized inall lowercase) was an American television brand for children between the ages of 5 and 14. Owned byIon Media, and previously a joint venture that also includedNBCUniversal,Corus Entertainment,Scholastic Corporation, andDreamWorks Classics, the brand consisted of a 24-hourfree-to-air television network often referred to as "Qubo Channel" (available as a digital terrestrial television service onowned-and-operated stations and some affiliates of corporate sisterIon Television, as well as on some pay television providers), an associated website with games and programs available throughvideo on demand, and a series ofprogramming blocks on Ion Television,Ion Plus,NBC andTelemundo.
Following Ion Media's acquisition by theE. W. Scripps Company, Qubo Channel closed on February 28, 2021.[1]
In May 2006,Ion Media Networks (formerly known as Paxson Communications until February 2006),[2][3]NBCUniversal (which owned a 32% interest in Ion Media at the time),[4]Corus Entertainment,Scholastic Corporation andClassic Media announced plans to launch a new, multi-platform children's entertainment brand known as Qubo, oriented towards providing "educational, values-oriented programming" targeted towards children between 5 and 14 years of age. The brand would encompass programming blocks on NBCUniversal and Ion's respective flagship broadcast television networks (NBC,Telemundo andIon Television), a video on demand service, a website, and a standalone 24-hour network carried as a digital subchannel on terrestrial television stations owned by Ion Media Networks and by pay TV providers.[5]
Qubo president Rick Rodríguez (who formerly served as a programming executive atDiscovery Communications) stated in a 2008 interview withMultichannel News that Qubo was designed as a bilingual brand, offering programming in both English and Spanish, with the latter's audio available through theSAP audio feed on most programming. Included as well was the "CC3" closed captioning channel for Spanish text, functioning in the opposite manner of how Telemundo utilizes its ownCC3 channel for English text during its weekday prime time lineup. While Qubo would initially carry Spanish-language dubs of its programming for its Telemundo block, Rodríguez did not rule out the possibility of developing original children's programming aimed at Hispanic and Latino audiences through Qubo. He felt that the market for Spanish-language children's programming had been underserved by existing outlets (such as Telemundo andUnivision), and envisioned the possibility of programming which could "bridge the gap" and educate Spanish-speaking children on the English language, and vice versa.[5]
The Qubo brand was intended to represent a "building block for kids," as reflected by its logo. The name "Qubo" was chosen because it had a "fun" sound, and the root word, "cube", was nearlycrosslingual in both English and Spanish (cubo).[5]
Qubo launched on September 9, 2006, with the premiere of weekend morning blocks on NBC (which aired exclusively on Saturday mornings, replacingDiscovery Kids on NBC, a weekly block programmed by theDiscovery Kids cable network) and Telemundo (which aired on both Saturday and Sunday mornings, replacingTelemundo Kids). This was followed by the September 15 introduction of a daytime block on Ion Television (then known as i: Independent Television, and previously PAX TV prior to June 2005), which initially aired on Friday afternoons and marked the return of children's programming to the network for the first time since the discontinuation of thePax Kids block in 2000. At launch, its programming included the first-run animated seriesDragon (produced by Scholastic),Jacob Two-Two,Babar, andJane and the Dragon (all produced by Corus Entertainment subsidiaryNelvana), alongsideVeggieTales and its two spin-offs,3-2-1 Penguins! andLarryboy: The Cartoon Adventures (all produced by Classic Media subsidiaryBig Idea), marking the first time thatVeggieTales had been broadcast as a television program.[6][7][8]
Four of the seven shows listed on the inaugural schedule (Dragon,Jane and the Dragon,3-2-1 Penguins!, andLarryboy: The Cartoon Adventures) premiered on American television for the first time. TheBabar television series originally aired onHBO in the 1990s, though its brief sixth season revival (which ran from January-March 2001 onTVO in Canada) would only debut on American television via Qubo. Prior to the television series' American run on HBO, NBC also aired two standaloneBabar specials narrated byPeter Ustinov and produced byLee Mendelson andBill Melendez:The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant on October 21, 1968, andBabar Comes to America on September 7, 1971.[9] In addition, thoughVeggieTales aired as a television program on Qubo, there were twoVeggieTales specials that were previously broadcast on television beforehand:VeggieTales Christmas Spectacular! on Ion's precursor, PAX TV, on December 19, 1998, andVeggieTales: The Star of Christmas onPBS on November 24, 2002, with repeat broadcasts of the latter airing until 2006.[10][11]Jacob Two-Two originally premiered on American television on January 9, 2005 with its Spanish dub on Telemundo through its predecessor block,Telemundo Kids, making it the only show from that block to immediately transition toQubo en Telemundo.[12][13][14] The respective Qubo blocks on both NBC and Ion did, however, premiereJacob Two-Two in English for the first time on American television.
VeggieTales and its spin-offs incorporated lessons related to Christian values; initially, this religious content was edited out of the originalVeggieTales broadcasts on Qubo at the request of NBC's standards and practices department. The move, however, drew criticism from the conservative watchdog groupParents Television Council, which filed a complaint against NBC. A representative for NBC replied in a statement that the editing conformed to guidelines within the network's broadcast standards "not to advocate any one religious point of view".VeggieTales creatorPhil Vischer also expressed discontent with the edits, stating that he was not informed that religious content would be removed from the series, and that he would have refused to sign a contract with Qubo if he had known of the decision beforehand. Vischer said, "I would have declined partly because I knew a lot of fans would feel like it was asellout or it was done for money." Still, Vischer added that he understood NBC's wish to remain religiously neutral, and said, "VeggieTales is religious, NBC is not. I want to focus people more on 'Isn't it cool that Bob and Larry are on television?'".
When3-2-1 Penguins! andLarryboy: The Cartoon Adventures were initially aired on Qubo, they were presented together under the title3-2-1 Penguins! and Larryboy Stories, with episodes alternating between the two shows. This arrangement was made becauseLarryboy had only four episodes (due to its cancellation following Big Idea’s bankruptcy back in 2003), while3-2-1 Penguins! had six episodes at the time. Additional material, including “Larryboy and the Bad Apple” from the originalVeggieTales series, and a new episode titled “Songs from Cosmic Café” (which incorporated several songs from3-2-1 Penguins!), brought the total episode count to 13. This lineup continued to be broadcast in reruns until September 29, 2007, when it was replaced by the second season premiere of3-2-1 Penguins! the following week. Subsequently, the combined series ceased broadcasting, leading to the original six direct-to-video episodes of3-2-1 Penguins!(including “Songs from Cosmic Café”) and the entireLarryboy series being dropped from Qubo's lineup.
The mainVeggieTales series continued to air on all of Qubo’s platforms until 2009, while the second and third seasons of3-2-1 Penguins! remained on each of the respective Qubo blocks until 2010, and on the standalone Qubo Channel until 2014.
In December 2006, a Spanish-language version of the Qubo website was launched. The 24-hour standalone Qubo Channel launched on Ion Media Networks' terrestrial stations on January 8, 2007 (ahead of its parent network's rebrand to Ion Television three weeks later on January 29), replacing Ion'stimeshift channel.[15] The network initially included a schedule of children's programming in rolling four-hour blocks; Ion intended to attempt carriage of the channel on pay TV providers.[15] In May of that year, NBCUniversal sold its minority stake in Ion Media Networks toCitadel LLC.[4] On December 3, 2007, Qubo expanded its programming offerings to include shows from other producers, as well as some programs that were already airing on each of the Qubo blocks. In addition, the rolling schedule was expanded to a six-hour block, which repeated four times per day.[16]
In January 2008, Ion Media Networks andComcast reached an agreement to continue carrying Ion's digital terrestrial channels, including Qubo andIon Life.[17][18] In August 2008, Qubo introduced guidelines for advertisers in an effort to help fight childhood obesity, committing to only accept advertisements for products which meet nutritional guidelines determined by the network in partnership with childhood obesity expert Goutham Rao. Qubo also began to air a series of public service announcements featuring characters from its programs in association with theAd Council, theUnited States Olympic Committee and theDepartment of Health and Human Services, advocating exercise and healthy living.[19]
In May 2009, Ion Media Networks filed an inquiry with theFederal Communications Commission to attempt must-carry subscription television carriage to expand Qubo's distribution to other providers.[20] Later in May 2010, Ion signed carriage agreements withAdvanced Cable Communications andBlue Ridge Communications, as well as deal with Comcast'sColorado Springs system to add Qubo on the providers' digital tiers.[21]
In 2012, NBCUniversal withdrew from the joint venture following its acquisition byComcast. On March 28, 2012, it was announced that NBC and Telemundo would discontinue their Qubo blocks and replace them withNBC Kids and MiTelemundo on July 7. Both blocks would be programmed bySprout, a preschool-oriented television network that originated from a previous joint venture between Comcast,PBS,HIT Entertainment andSesame Workshop, and later came under NBCUniversal ownership as part of the Comcast merger.[22][23] This left Ion Television as the only remaining network with a Qubo-branded programming block. The standalone Qubo Channel also continued to operate, though with the discontinuation of Telemundo's Qubo block, all Spanish dubs of Qubo's programming became exclusive to the network's SAP audio track.
Ion Media Networks later acquired the remaining stakes in Qubo held by Classic Media (which became DreamWorks Classics in 2012 after its acquisition byDreamWorks Animation),Scholastic Corporation andCorus Entertainment in 2013, with all three companies retaining program distribution partnerships with the network.
The Qubo block on Ion Television has seen numerous schedule changes throughout its run, switching to a one-hour afternoon slot each Wednesday through Friday, and later to a three-hour Friday morning slot.[24] The block was later rebranded as the "Qubo Kids Corner" on January 4, 2015, concurrent with the block's initial move to Sunday mornings.[25] On September 8, 2020, the block also began airing onIon Plus during Monday mornings due to E/I commitments, since they had eight stations in the network that had DT1 main-channel carriage rather than subchannel carriage.
On September 24, 2020, theE. W. Scripps Company announced an agreement to buy Ion Media for $2.65 billion.[26] The transaction, which closed on January 7, 2021,[27] saw Ion's networks integrated into Katz Broadcasting, Scripps's subsidiary for its own multicast networks, later merged intoScripps Networks.[28] For several Ion networks, including Qubo, Ion Plus and Ion Shop, it would be a short-lived period under Katz's management.
On January 14, 2021, Scripps announced that it would discontinue Ion Shop and Qubo on February 28, with Ion Plus transitioning to aFAST service. The spectrum allocated to the three networks would be repurposed to carry Katz-owned networks starting March 1, with the initial slate of Ion Television O&Os adding those networks following the expiration of Scripps/Katz's existing contracts with other broadcasting companies the day prior, and other stations following suit as contracts with existing affiliates expired throughout 2021 and 2022; in markets where major network affiliates operated by Scripps already carried a Katz-owned network, the networks wereload balanced and freed up onto Ion stations due to limited spectrum capacity during theATSC 3.0 transition, along with Ion's existing carriage deals withQurate's home shopping networks,QVC andHSN, along with their own secondary channels.[1]
Following Qubo's closure, Scripps continued to utilize an unbranded outside-sourced three-hour block of programming on Ion Television in order to meet their E/I burden on Friday mornings. Although programming that aired on Qubo's Ion block were retained, the Qubo branding was removed. The Qubo website redirected to the main Ion website shortly thereafter, then completely shut down.
Qubo's shutdown was unacknowledged on-air outside occasional ticker announcements and the withdrawal of promotional advertising that no longer applied. Some affiliates abruptly switched the night of February 26 to other Katz networks, while others were switched automatically when Qubo officially closed shortly before midnight on February 28, 2021.
Qubo featured archived content from the programming libraries ofNBCUniversal,Corus Entertainment (primarily from itsNelvana unit),Scholastic Corporation,DreamWorks Animation,Classic Media, Trilogy Animation Group,WildBrain,9 Story Media Group andSplash Entertainment, with its programs targeted all ages 5 to 14. Though there was a first agreement of the two companies (NBCUniversal, and Ion Media) to produce a new series for the network and program block each year, Qubo only produced three original series:My Friend Rabbit (2007–08),Turbo Dogs (2008–2011), and season 1 ofShelldon (2009–2012). Qubo regularly broadcast series aimed at preschoolers during the morning and afternoon hours, while series aimed at older children were featured as part of the network's evening schedule.
Programming on both Qubo Channel and its companion Qubo blocks onNBC,Telemundo,Ion Television, andIon Plus accounted for all educational and informative (E/I) programming, relievingIon Media (both its O&O stations and certain Ion affiliates that carry the 24-hour channel) from the responsibility of carrying programs compliant with guidelines dictated by theChildren's Television Act on its other subchannel services. This allowed Ion to carry Ion Shop,HSN andQVC without overlaying any E/I programming on those subchannels.
Although the Qubo blocks on both NBC and Telemundo regularly aired on Saturday mornings (with Telemundo’s Qubo block also broadcasting on Sunday mornings), affiliates in some parts of the country deferred certain programs within the lineup to Sunday morning timeslots to accommodate locally produced programs (such as weekend morning newscasts) or due to scheduling issues with regional ornetwork sportsbroadcasts that start in time periods normally occupied by the block. The Qubo block on Ion Television remained unaffected by these scheduling issues, as Ion primarily airs syndicated reruns (although sports programming was later added to Ion’s lineup in April 2024, just over three years after Qubo ceased operations) and is often distributed through a national feed.
On September 27, 2010, Qubo Channel launched "Qubo Night Owl", (running from 12:00 to 6:00 a.m. ET) featuring classic animated series, many of which came from theFilmation library then owned by Classic Media.[29] After Classic Media was acquired by DreamWorks in 2012, the agreement with Qubo for the Filmation library ended in August 2013, leading to the block's restructuring to feature a mixture of animated and live-action series sourced only from the remaining distribution partners.
The block was discontinued on January 8, 2019 as Ion Media decided to reduce the amount of religious and paid programming on both Ion Television and Ion Plus (then known as Ion Life) by shifting those hours to Qubo's overnight schedule between 1:00 to 6:00 a.m. ET, reducing Qubo's main schedule to 19 hours daily from 6:00 to 1:00 a.m. ET. However, the channel returned to its 24-hour schedule for its final week on the air between February 22 to February 28, 2021.[30][31]
As of November 2015[update], Qubo had affiliation agreements with 67 television stations encompassing 34 states and the District of Columbia.[32] The network had an estimated national reach of 58.83% of all households in the United States (or 183,832,858 American families with at least one television set). Like parent network Ion Television, the network's stations almost exclusively consisted of network-owned stations (with the exception of Louisville, Kentucky affiliateWBNA). Qubo's programming was available by default through a national feed that was delivered directly to cable and satellite providers in markets without a local Ion Television station that carried the network.
Qubo did not have any over-the-air stations in several major markets, most notablyToledo, Ohio;San Diego, California;Charlotte, North Carolina;Richmond, Virginia;Green Bay, Wisconsin; andCincinnati, Ohio, along with limited coverage inBaltimore, which depended on Ion's twoWashington, D.C. stations for the network and had no Baltimore station. A key factor in the network's limited national broadcast coverage is the fact that Ion Media Networks did not actively attempt over-the-air distribution for the network on the digital subchannels of other network-affiliated stations (in contrast, its parent network Ion Television, which had similarly limited national coverage following the digital television transition, had begun subchannel-only affiliation arrangements through agreements withNBC Owned Television Stations'Telemundo Station Group subsidiary andNexstar Media Group during 2014 and 2015[33]), with very few stations thatcontractually carry the network's programming (with limited exceptions in markets such as Louisville, Kentucky andAnchorage, Alaska). As a result, Ion Media Networks owned most of Qubo's station base.