4Kids TV
4Kids TV is a defunct television programming block and Internet-based video on demand children's network operated by 4Kids Entertainment. It originated as a weekly block on Saturday mornings on the Fox Broadcasting Company, 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 targets at children aged 7-11. The 4Kids TV block was part of the Fox network schedule, although it was syndicated to other broadcast television stations in certain markets where a Fox affiliate declined to air it.
History
The block aired a preview special on September 1, 2002, and was formally launched on September 14, 2002, under the name "FoxBox", a joint venture between the Fox Broadcasting Company and 4Kids Entertainment, replacing Fox Kids, which the network announced it would discontinue as a result of the 2001 purchase of Fox Kids Worldwide by Walt Disney Television. The block was rebranded as 4Kids TV on January 22, 2005. 4Kids Entertainment was wholly responsible for the content of the block and collected all of the advertising revenue accrued from it. However, Fox's standards and practices department still handled content approval and responsibility of editing the series to meet terrestrial standards.The programming block aired on Saturday mornings in most areas of the United States, though some stations carried it on Sundays. On October 2, 2007, 4Kids Entertainment announced it would program a competing Saturday morning lineup for The CW; the new block, The CW4Kids, debuted on May 24, 2008, replacing the Kids' WB programming block, which had been carried over to The CW from one of its predecessors, The WB, when it launched in September 2006. The block was renamed as Toonzai on August 14, 2010, and continued to air until it ended August 18, 2012, being replaced by Vortexx a week later and the block continued to air until it ended on September 27, 2014.
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. 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's cable channels. 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 a paid programming block titled Weekend Marketplace, which replaced 4Kids TV on January 3, 2009. The 4KidsTV logo now only exists as the closing logo for 4Kids Entertainment for shows produced by the company distributed outside of the United States.
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 with Steve Rotfeld Productions to launch Xploration Station, a two-hour block of live-action educational programs focused on the STEM fields, which debuted on September 13, 2014. As the block accounts for two of the three weekly hours of educational programming required by the Federal Communications Commission's Children's Television Act, the Fox affiliates that opted against airing 4Kids TV, Fox Kids or Weekend Marketplace elected to run Xploration 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 the syndication market.
Programming
Former programming
Original programming
Acquired programming
Short-form programming
4KidsTV.com
Online network
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. However, it was revamped on September 25, 2008, in beta testing. Promotions stated that 4Kids TV would be "moving online" starting in January 2009, implying that the video player would be fully operational at that time; however it remained in beta testing by that month. However, 4Kids seemed to increase the number of shows that were added to the player at that point. The site fully launched on September 9, 2009, with the player receiving a revamp once again. The online network was shut down on November 2, 2012.Relationship with Fox and broadcast ambiguities
The block had a somewhat unusual relationship to the Fox network. The programming was produced for Fox and offered to the network's owned-and-operated stations and affiliates first, so the Fox station in any given area had the right 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 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 UPN, or later, a CW or MyNetworkTV affiliate. The lone exception was in St. Louis, Missouri, where Fox O&O KTVI carried the block.
Some of 4Kids TV's programming met the criteria to be considered educational 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, outside of Fox 4Kids TV's programming aired reruns on The WB every Sunday morning after new episode aired on Saturday on Fox and new episodes on The WB's children block Kids' WB.
Markets where 4Kids TV did not run at all
Markets where 4Kids TV ran on a MyNetworkTV affiliate
Markets where 4Kids TV ran on a CW affiliate
Note: These CW affiliates ran 4Kids TV on Sundays, due to their obligation to carry The CW4Kids Saturday block.| City of license/market | Fox station | CW station carrying block | Notes |
| Atlanta, Georgia | WAGA-TV | WUPA | WUPA was a UPN O&O at the time it began carrying 4KidsTV; it dropped the block before the station switched to The CW. |
| Cleveland, Ohio | WJW-TV | WBNX-TV | WBNX was a WB affiliate at the time it began carrying 4KidsTV. |
| Fresno, California | KMPH-TV | KFRE-TV | Duopoly owned by Pappas Telecasting Companies ; KFRE was a WB affiliate at the time it began carrying 4KidsTV. |
| Omaha, Nebraska | KPTM | KXVO | Duopoly owned by Pappas Telecasting Companies ; KXVO was a WB affiliate at the time it began carrying 4KidsTV. |
| Phoenix, Arizona | KSAZ-TV | KASW | KASW was a WB affiliate at the time it began carrying 4KidsTV. |