On May 8, 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 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.[5]
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.[6]
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).[6]
Launch of programming blocks
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.[7][8]
Edits to Big Idea’s programming
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?'".
When 3-2-1 Penguins! and Larryboy: The Cartoon Adventures were initially aired on Qubo, they were presented together under the title '3-2-1 Penguins! and Larryboy Stories', with episodes alternating between the two shows. This arrangement was made because Larryboy had only four episodes (due to its cancellation following Big Idea’s bankruptcy back in 2003), while 3-2-1 Penguins! had six episodes at the time. Additional material, including “Larryboy and the Bad Apple” from the original VeggieTales series, and a new episode titled “Songs from Cosmic Café” (which incorporated several songs from 3-2-1 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 of 3-2-1 Penguins! the following week. Subsequently, the combined series ceased broadcasting, leading to the original six direct-to-video episodes of ''3-2-1 Penguins! (including “Songs from Cosmic Café”) and the entire Larryboy'' series being dropped from Qubo's lineup.
Launch of standalone network and expanded carriage agreements
In December 2006, a Spanish-language version of the Qubo website was launched. The 24-hour standalone Qubo Channel launched on the DT2 subchannel of Ion Media Networks' terrestrial stations on January 8, 2007 (three weeks ahead of its parent network's rebrand to Ion Television on January 29), replacing Ion's timeshift channel. 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.[16][17] In May of that year, NBCUniversal sold its minority stake in Ion Media Networks to Citadel 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. By 2010, the channel adopted a more traditional schedule featuring a larger array of programs.[18]
In January 2008, Ion Media Networks and Comcast
Ion acquisition of partner stakes
In 2012, NBCUniversal withdrew from the joint venture following its acquisition by Comcast, resulting in Ion Media Networks acquiring NBCUniversal's interest in the venture. On March 28 of that year, it was announced that NBC and Telemundo would discontinue their Qubo blocks and replace them with NBC Kids and MiTelemundo on July 7. Both blocks would be programmed by Sprout, a preschool-oriented television network that originated from a previous joint venture between Comcast, PBS, HIT Entertainment and Sesame Workshop, and later came under NBCUniversal ownership as part of the Comcast merger.[24][25] The Qubo block ended its run on NBC on June 30, followed by Telemundo on July 1, leaving Ion Television as the only remaining network with a Qubo-branded programming block. The standalone Qubo Channel also continued to operate.
Ion Media Networks later acquired the remaining stakes in Qubo held by Classic Media (which became DreamWorks Classics in 2012 after its acquisition by DreamWorks Animation), Scholastic Corporation
Scripps purchase and shutdown
On September 24, 2020, the E. W. Scripps Company announced an agreement to buy Ion Media for $2.65 billion.[28] The transaction, which closed on January 7, 2021,[29] saw Ion's networks integrated into Katz Broadcasting, Scripps's subsidiary for its own multicast networks, later merged into Scripps Networks.[30] 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 a FAST 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 were load balanced and freed up onto Ion stations due to limited spectrum capacity during the ATSC 3.0 transition, along with Ion's existing carriage deals with
