Programs/Content
‘Odd Squad’ abroad: Hit PBS Kids series expands to UK
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Set in Britain and featuring a new cast, the fourth season will bring new twists on oddness and lessons in “maths.”
Featured in Category
WHYY dives into original children’s programming with two new offerings
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“Albie’s Elevator” and “The Infinite Art Hunt” aim to reach kids ages 2 to 8.
Programs/Content
Ahoy, Story Pirates! ‘SPTV’ brings creative storytelling to broadcast TV
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The public TV sibling of the popular kids podcast debuted in 2020 on KLCS in Los Angeles.
Programs/Content
A mission to boost literacy informs ‘Drawn In,’ a program from Nine PBS
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Nine PBS in St. Louis partnered with Lion Forge Animation to create a series that features diverse characters who share a love of comic books.
Programs/Content
‘Alma’s Way’ outreach reflects heritage for young Latino viewers in rural Tennessee and beyond
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Stations and their community partners are welcoming the show’s social and emotional curriculum with virtual events and interactive in-school workshops.
Programs/Content
5 lessons we learned turning our podcast into animated shorts for public TV
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The father-daughter hosts and creators of “You Must Know Everything” found that collaboration and self-promotion can expand the reach of a homegrown project.
Programs/Content
The missing middle: Reimagining a future for tweens, teens and public media
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Researchers from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center report on how public media can create media that’s relevant to the lives of the teens and tweens who make up Gen Z.
Programs/Content
New All Classical Portland stream provides ‘creative playground’ for young listeners
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“It’s really about exposure to other cultures, being aware of what’s happening outside of your community and hearing music in different languages.”
Programs/Content
How Chicago’s WBEZ helped fulfill a girl’s wish to create her own podcast
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Five-year-old Azka Sharief “wanted to write a mystery story and read it as a podcast,” says WBEZ producer Kevin Dawson. “Of course we were more than happy to help.”
Programs/Content
Through podcasts, kids’ shows also get more airtime on old-school radio
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Podcasts give creators of kids’ shows more freedom, but finding ways to play to radio’s strengths can help them reach more listeners.
Programs/Content
In troubling times, public TV is where children, and adults, can find ‘helpers’
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Public media plays a critical role in helping young children understand and cope in an increasingly difficult world.
Quick Takes
Louisville Public Media gets grant for kids’ classical podcast
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The podcast aims to be a resource for schools lacking music education.
Programs/Content
For kids TV, CPB focuses on diversity behind the screen
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The funder is ramping up efforts to boost minority staffing on the shows it funds.
Programs/Content
Two Michigan stations join to create children’s programming channel
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WKAR’s licensee has decided not to give up spectrum in the FCC auction.
"The Pub" Podcast
Linda Simensky, PBS’s head of children’s programming, on carrying forward Mister Rogers’ legacy
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“Shows are being made today from a much better understanding of how kids learn.”
"The Pub" Podcast
The Pub, Episode 6: WWFD (What Would Fred Rogers Do?), PBS documentaries in danger, David Carr on public media
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This week, we contemplate how much children’s public television has changed since Fred Rogers’ day, and the news isn’t all bad — far from it, in fact.
Children's programming
PBS’s live-action Odd Squad aims to ‘make math relevant’ for kids
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PBS Kids will expand the footprint of its math-focused programs with Odd Squad, a live-action TV series for school-aged children. The new show, which follows the fall 2013 debut of Peg + Cat, a preschool series presenting math concepts, will debut Nov. 26. Creators Tim McKeon and Adam Peltzman, who previously collaborated as television writers on another PBS Kids series for school-aged children, The Electric Company, are producing Odd Squad through Toronto-based Sinking Ship Entertainment and the Fred Rogers Company (which also produces Peg + Cat and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood for PBS). Odd Squad stars sleuths Olive and Otto, members of a detective agency who use math concepts to solve unusual mysteries around their town.
Programs/Content
Odd Squad to be PBS Kids’ newest math learning series
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It’s a question that parents and teachers struggle to answer at home and in the classroom: how do we make math fun for kids? The creative minds at PBS Kids have spent the last few years devising a solution to that problem. With Ready to Learn funding provided through the Department of Education in 2010, PBS staff set their sights on creating two math-focused children’s shows. Their answer for the 3- to 5-year-old crowd was PEG + CAT, an animated series that debuted last fall. Produced by Fred Rogers Company, PEG + CAT teaches measurement, shapes and patterns, skills that help the characters solve their real-life problems.
Odd Squad, a live-action math series geared toward children ages 5 to 8, is the latest addition to PBS’s slate of math-based kids’ programming.
Development
PubTV tests new approaches for fundraising with kids’ TV
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This reluctance to fundraise around children’s shows is “a conundrum,” Rotenberg said in an interview. “Kids’ programming is probably the most recognized and valued service that we offer … And yet it seems that, as a community, we shy away from it.”