ABC Kids is the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...
's part-time channel, broadcasting shows between the hours of 5am and 7:30pm for children under 6 years old in each local Australian channel. It shares the same
bandwidth as
ABC TV Plus which broadcasts outside ABC Kids' scheduled hours and supplements the flagship
ABC TV channel with extra adult-oriented programming. It has an educational program for children ages 2 to 13 called "
ABC Reading Eggs" for Australia, internationally called "
Reading Eggs" and owned by
Edmentum
Edmentum is an American online learning provider and owner of Reading Eggs internationally.
Founded in 2000 as Archipelago Learning, the company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and is a publicly held company with the largest shareholder bei ...
.
History
Origins
In 1991, all children's programming on the ABC was organized into a daily broadcasting block under the name ABC For Kids. This new programming block featured a range of programming ranging from preschoolers to young children and included both old and new content. The logo featured six blocks (3 across, 2 down) with the top row lettered "A", "B" and "C", and the bottom row featuring an apple, a bee and a carrot beneath their respective letter.
2001–2009
In 2001, the ABC For Kids timeslot was rebranded as ABC Kids and content was expanded to include shows for older children as well as younger children. A new logo was also introduced, featuring a solid green
Lissajous curve
A Lissajous curve , also known as Lissajous figure or Bowditch curve , is the graph of a system of parametric equations
: x=A\sin(at+\delta),\quad y=B\sin(bt),
which describe the superposition of two perpendicular oscillations in x and y dire ...
(taken from the ABC's logo) overlaid with "ABC Kids" in lowercase blue letters.
2001–2003: ABC Kids and Fly TV channels
In addition to the daily broadcasting block on the ABC, a new children's channel with the ABC Kids branding commenced transmission nationally on 1 August 2001 on channel 21, becoming
ABC Television ABC Television most commonly refers to:
*ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or
*ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia
ABC Television or ABC ...
's first digital multichannel service. The service was officially inaugurated by former ABC Managing Director,
Jonathan Shier
Jonathan Fraser Shier (born 18 October 1947) is an Australian businessman and media executive.
He was educated at Geelong Grammar School and Monash University (LLB BEcon). During the years 1978 to 1999, Shier lived in the United Kingdom and the N ...
, at the Australian
Parliament House
Parliament House may refer to:
Australia
* Parliament House, Canberra, Parliament of Australia
* Parliament House, Adelaide, Parliament of South Australia
* Parliament House, Brisbane, Parliament of Queensland
* Parliament House, Darwin, Parliame ...
in
Canberra
Canberra ( )
is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...
on 7 August 2001. The ABC launched the channel without additional funding, hoping that its success would prompt an additional government grant.
ABC Kids was broadcast from 6:00am to 6:00pm, with the remaining broadcasting time occupied by its sister service, Fly TV.
Fly TV was launched on 1 November 2001 to feature programming aimed at teenagers and young adults and broadcast a 6-hour block from 6:00pm to 12:00am, which was repeated from 12:00am to 6:00am. In addition to their availability on free-to-air television, the ABC Kids and Fly TV channels were also available on
Austar channel 14 and
Optus TV
Optus Television is the cable television division (organisation), division of Australian telecommunications company Optus.
History
Its immediate predecessor was Optus Vision, a joint venture between Optus and Continental Cablevision, with sma ...
channel 21.
The ABC Kids and Fly TV channels were discontinued on 30 June 2003 in the first of a series of cuts to save around
A$25 million a year for the ABC. The ABC could not secure government funding to keep the channel on-air, and the sluggish uptake of digital television in Australia at the time made justifying a digital-only channel with a low viewership against the cost of keeping the channel on-air difficult.
However, the ABC Kids brand still remained throughout this period on the ABC's daily children's broadcasting block.
After the close of the ABC Kids and Fly TV channels, programming for younger Fly TV viewers was integrated into the ABC Kids broadcasting block.
2009–2011: Split between two channels
In 2009, two daily blocks of children's programming were launched as ABC For Kids, running from 8:00am to 11:00am and 2:55pm to 4:00pm on ABC1. From 2 May 2009, a new preschool children's block, ABC For Kids On 2 was launched on
ABC2 in 2009–2011, featuring children's programming every day until 6pm, because of this ABC For Kids was renamed ABC1 For Kids. Some ABC2 programmes had to be cancelled or relocated to other channels, such as ''
Rage
Rage may refer to:
* Rage (emotion), an intense form of anger
Games
* Rage (collectible card game), a collectible card game
* Rage (trick-taking card game), a commercial variant of the card game Oh Hell
* ''Rage'' (video game), a 2011 first-per ...
''. The classic ABC For Kids logo from 1991 was rendered in 3D when the ABC for Kids name was revived.
2011–present: Part-time channel refocus
In 2011, all children's programming was moved from the main ABC channel and was divided between ABC 4 Kids and ABC3. ABC for Kids on 2 rebranded as ABC 4 Kids and was refocused as a part-time channel for preschoolers sharing the same bandwidth of ABC2 between 6am and 7pm. A new logo based on the ABC3 logo was also introduced.
Broadcasting of the channel was rescheduled to begin at 5am instead of 6am on 7 July 2014.
On 2 March 2015, the name of the channel was changed to ABC Kids and a new logo inspired by the classic children's logo was unveiled.
Within the rebrand of
ABC Comedy
ABC TV Plus (formerly ABC2 and ABC Comedy) is an Australian free-to-air television channel owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and part of its ABC Television network. The channel broadcasts a range of general entertainment progra ...
on 4 December 2017, broadcasting of the channel was rescheduled to end at 7:30pm instead of 7pm.
On 1 October 2018, ABC Kids aired the
Logie award-winning animated preschool television series ''
Bluey''.
The channel again received a new logo and look on 17 March 2020, introducing three animated characters based on the classic logo (an apple, a bee and a crocodile named Croc, instead of a carrot). The rebrand was designed by ABC Made, the ABC's in-house award-winning creative team.
Programming
See also
*
Children's programming on ABC Television
*
List of digital television channels in Australia
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:ABC Kids (Australia)
Australian Broadcasting Corporation television
Television programming blocks in Australia
Digital terrestrial television in Australia
Television channels and stations established in 2011
English-language television stations in Australia
Commercial-free television networks in Australia
Children's television networks
Children's television channels in Australia
2011 establishments in Australia
Preschool education television networks