Qubo

Qubo (/ˈkjuːboʊ/ KYEW-boh; stylized in all lowercase) was an American television brand for children between the ages of 5 and 14. Owned by Ion Media, and previously a joint venture that also included NBCUniversal, Corus Entertainment, Scholastic Corporation, and DreamWorks Classics, the brand consisted of a 24-hour free-to-air television network often referred to as Qubo Channel (available as a digital terrestrial television service on owned-and-operated stations and some affiliates of corporate sister Ion Television, as well as on some pay television providers), an associated website with games and programs available through video on demand, and a series of programming blocks on Ion Television, Ion Plus, NBC and Telemundo.

Following Ion Media's acquisition by the E. W. Scripps Company, Qubo Channel closed on February 28, 2021.

On May 8, 2006, Ion Media Networks (formerly known as Paxson Communications until February 2006), NBCUniversal (which owned a 32% interest in Ion Media at the time), Corus Entertainment, Scholastic Corporation and Classic Media announced plans to launch a new, multi-platform children's entertainment brand oriented towards providing "educational, values-oriented programming" targeted towards children between 5 and 14 years of age. Originally announced under the name Smart Place for Kids, the official name Qubo was announced in August 2006. The brand would encompass programming blocks on NBCUniversal and Ion's respective flagship broadcast television networks (NBC, Telemundo and Ion 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.

Qubo president Rick Rodríguez (who formerly served as a programming executive at Discovery Communications) stated in a 2008 interview with Multichannel News that Qubo was designed as a bilingual brand, offering programming in both English and Spanish. 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 and Univision), and envisioned the possibility of programming which could "bridge the gap" and educate Spanish-speaking children on the English language, and vice versa.

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 nearly crosslingual in both English and Spanish (cubo).

Qubo launched on September 9, 2006, with the premiere of weekend morning blocks on both NBC (which ran for three hours exclusively on Saturday mornings, replacing Discovery Kids on NBC, a weekly block programmed by the Discovery Kids cable network) and Telemundo (which divided the three-hour lineup into two 90-minute blocks airing on both Saturday and Sunday mornings, replacing Telemundo Kids). This was followed by the September 15 introduction of a three-hour 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 the Pax Kids block in 2000. At launch, its programming included the first-run animated series Dragon (produced by Scholastic), Jacob Two-Two, Babar, and Jane and the Dragon (all produced by Corus Entertainment subsidiary Nelvana), alongside VeggieTales and its two spin-offs, 3-2-1 Penguins! and Larryboy: The Cartoon Adventures (all produced by Classic Media subsidiary Big Idea), marking the first time that VeggieTales had been broadcast as a television program.

Four of the seven shows listed on the inaugural schedule (Dragon, Jane and the Dragon, 3-2-1 Penguins!, and Larryboy: The Cartoon Adventures) premiered on American television for the first time. The Babar television series originally aired on HBO in the 1990s, though its brief sixth season revival (which ran from January-March 2001 on TVO in Canada) would only debut on American television via Qubo. Prior to the television series' American run on HBO, NBC also aired two standalone Babar specials narrated by Peter Ustinov and produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez: The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant on October 21, 1968, and Babar Comes to America on September 7, 1971. In addition, though VeggieTales aired as a television program on Qubo, there were two VeggieTales specials that were previously broadcast on television beforehand: VeggieTales Christmas Spectacular! on Ion's precursor, PAX TV, on December 19, 1998, and VeggieTales: The Star of Christmas on PBS on November 24, 2002, with repeat broadcasts of the latter airing until 2006. 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 to Qubo en Telemundo. The companion Qubo blocks on both NBC and Ion did, however, premiere Jacob 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 original VeggieTales broadcasts on Qubo at the request of NBC's standards and practices department. The move, however, drew criticism from the conservative watchdog group Parents 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 creator Phil 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 a sellout 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?'".