Universal Kids is a children's entertainment channel operated by NBCUniversal in the United States targeting audiences aged 2-14. For those who aren't familiar with the brand, it's basically the American counterpart of DreamWorks Channel.
Universal Kids once offered live-action series like Hank Zipzer and Top Chef now it only offers animation mainly from DreamWorks Animation and NBCUniversal archives such as Where's Waldo, Norman Picklestripes, Dragons and Trolls: The Beat Goes On.
As seen within Nielsen's ratings for the year end 2022, Universal Kids has lost 34% of their viewers. It went from having at least 34000 viewers to a whopping 23000 and a year prior it increased to about 4% so why is that.
Regular Nick:
- Here are other ways to view PBS Kids
- The Twisted Timeline Of Sammy And Raj coming soon to Nickelodeon
- Predictions: Nicktoons and Boomerang's untimely demise
Before Universal Kids, the brand was once a preschool channel refered to as Sprout which competed with brands like CBeebies and Baby TV with shows like Chica, Nina's World and Jay Jay The Jet Plane.
After its acquisition by NBCUniversal in 2015, the company was looking to invent a channel that could take on the likes of Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. How good that turned out to be still lost on why they couldn't have done with DreamWorks.
As analysed by several friends of mine, NBCUniversal rushed to have this channel onboard. To me it would have made more sense to change the content as Sprout was still relevant around the time Universal Kids entertained.
Perhaps, NBCUniversal could have greenlit original series particularly for Sprout but catered to a wider audience aged 8-14 and try getting shows like AFHV and Ripley's Believe It Or Not as one is family oriented and the other educational.
Overtime we could have got more entertaining shows from the brand as more audiences would have been glued.
Thereafter they could have fiddled around with the brand name a bit refer to it as Universal Sprout and shortly after Universal Kids but I think DreamWorks would have made sense as more people would have been familiar with the brand and it wouldn't bomb so much.
Insidus Games:
- Tom And Jerry: Infurnal Escape
- Tom And Jerry: The Magic Ring
- The Wild Thornberrys Movie
As mentioned, Universal Kids' audience continues to plummet behind closed doors NBCUniversal hasn't bothered to source out anything for the channel through their archives so it's safe to say that the channel might as well be closing down.
Joining another channel that pulled far less viewers which is the gaming brand G4.
Although Universal Kids' demise seems more transparent within each passing second. The upside to all this is DreamWorks as distribution and popularity for the brand continues to accelerate after Disney closes their channels.
So if there's anything I think NBCUniversal should learn from all this is that they don't need to work hard to be another Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon but fight to their own strengths and the rest will come later as seen with DreamWorks.
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