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Originally Posted by Electronic M
I bet the decline of kids shows on networks has to do with the dedicated kids channels now on DTV...
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It wouldn't surprise me one bit if this is the case. Cable TV itself has several kids' channels (Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., TeenNick, et al.); this could well be one of many reasons why the broadcast networks don't have kids' shows on Saturday morning anymore. I can remember when the networks had an entire block of time on Saturdays (usually 8 a.m. to noon, local time) reserved for childrens' programming, but that was before cable and, later, DTV.
NBC still has kids' programming on Saturday mornings, but it's nothing like what it was in the '60s and '70s. NBC's childrens' shows come from Sprout, a kids' cable TV channel, and are distributed over the network under the "NBC Kids" branding.
BTW, cable, satellite, DTV, Roku ... have changed the landscape of American TV forever. There is nothing we can do about it; it could well be a cost-cutting move on the broadcast networks' part or some other reason, but whatever it is, that's how it is nowadays, like it or not.
One thing I've noticed on cable lately, however, is the return in reruns of some kids' shows such as Saved by the Bell, a live-action show aimed at teenagers which aired in the late '80s and nineties on NBC Saturday mornings. The program is now on MeTV on Sunday afternoons. It is rated "e/i", which means it is educational and informative.
For decades, childrens' programming on Saturday mornings was mostly animated cartoons; however, in the early part of this century, I think the FCC may have pressured the networks to put more educational shows on TV during this time period so that kids would actually learn something while sitting in front of the TV, instead of watching those animated shows which were not educational in the least.
One other problem with some of the animated shows was they were (or might have been) too violent for kids, although this was not an issue in the '60s-'70s. It is much more so today, with all the gun violence going on in this country; the last thing kids need to be exposed to on Saturday morning TV is scenes showing cartoon characters being shot or killed by guns. One serious problem with this type of cartoon is that the character(s) who were supposedly shot and killed would get back up again in the next scene, which gives children absolutely the wrong idea about killing; in real life, of course, when a person is killed, they do not get up--EVER--regardless of what the kids may see on TV.