Vortexx was an American Saturday morning

children's television Children's television series (or children's television shows) are Television show, television programs designed specifically for Child, children. They are typically characterised by easy-going content devoid of sensitive or adult themes and are ...

programming block Block programming (also known as a strand in British broadcasting) is the arrangement of programs on radio or television so that those of a particular genre, theme, or target audience are united. Overview Block programming involves scheduling a ...

that aired on

The CW The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...

from August 25, 2012 to September 27, 2014. Programmed by

Saban Brands Saban Brands was an American brand management and production company and a defunct subsidiary of Saban Capital Group based in Los Angeles, California. Founded by Israeli American media mogul Haim Saban as a successor to an earlier company he co-f ...

, it replaced Toonzai, a block that was programmed by

4Kids Entertainment 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (formerly known as Leisure Concepts, Inc. and later known as 4Licensing Corporation; stylized as 4K!DS ENTERTAINMENT) was an American licensing company. The company was previously also a film and television production ...

until its

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...

. The Vortexx block primarily featured animated programs, although it also featured several live-action series, including the '' Lost Galaxy'' installment of the ''

Power Rangers ''Power Rangers'' is an American media franchise created by Haim Saban, Shuki Levy and Shotaro Ishinomori built around a live-action superhero television series, based on the Japanese tokusatsu franchise ''Super Sentai''. It is currently ow ...

'' franchise (which had been re-acquired by Saban), and the WWE

wrestling Wrestling is a martial art, combat sport, and form of entertainment that involves grappling with an opponent and striving to obtain a position of advantage through different throws or techniques, within a given ruleset. Wrestling involves di ...

series '' Saturday Morning Slam''. The block closed on September 27, 2014, and was replaced the following week with a live-action E/I block from Litton Entertainment named

One Magnificent Morning One Magnificent Morning (OMM) is an American programming block that is programmed by Hearst Media Production Group (formerly Litton Entertainment) and distributed by CBS Media Ventures, and debuted on October 4, 2014, as a replacement for the an ...

, marking the end of traditional Saturday morning children's programming on broadcast television.

History

On April 6, 2011, following a lawsuit involving the ''

Yu-Gi-Oh! is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazuki Takahashi. It was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' between September 1996 and March 2004, with its chapters collected in 38 volumes. The ...

'' franchise, 4Kids Entertainment, which programmed TheCW4Kids/Toonzai block for the network, filed for

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...

protection. On May 1, 2012, Kidsco Media Ventures, an affiliate of

Saban Capital Group Saban Capital Group LLC is an American investment company based in Los Angeles, California focused on media, entertainment and communications. Formed in 2001 by Haim Saban, Saban Capital Group owns Saban Films, and co-owns Celestial Tiger Ente ...

, placed a bid to acquire some of their assets. On June 26, 2012, after competition from 4K Acquisition Corp, a subsidiary of

Konami , commonly known as Konami, , is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading card ...

, the deal was finalized, with 4K Acquisition receiving the U.S. rights to the ''

'' franchise and Saban receiving all other assets, including the programming rights to The CW's Saturday morning block. On July 2, 2012, it was announced that

, via Kidsco Media Ventures, would begin programming the block that fall. On July 12, 2012, it was announced that the block would be named Vortexx, which launched on August 25, 2012.

Closure

On June 5, 2014, The CW announced that it had entered into a programming agreement with Litton Entertainment to launch a new Saturday morning E/I block replacing Vortexx. The block would be replaced on October 4, 2014 by

, a block produced by Litton Entertainment (now

Hearst Media Production Group The Hearst Media Production Group, formerly Litton Syndications and Litton Entertainment, is an American media production and syndication based in New York City, New York and a subsidiary of the Hearst Television division of Hearst Communicati ...

) that features live-action documentary and lifestyle programs aimed at pre-teens and teenagers similarly to a

block Block or blocked may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Block programming, the result of a programming strategy in broadcasting * W242BX, a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States known as ''96.3 ...

also introduced by Litton for CW sister channel CBS the previous year. The move came as part of a shift by broadcast television networks towards using their Saturday morning lineup solely to comply with the educational programming requirements mandated by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(FCC), along with the cultural shift towards

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and online

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...

viewing of children's and animated programming. Vortexx aired for the final time on September 27, 2014. It was the last conclusive Saturday morning block across the major American broadcast television networks that primarily featured non-educational programming aimed at children. On July 1, 2017, the

KidsClick KidsClick was a daily children's programming block distributed by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which premiered on July 1, 2017. The block, which primarily consisted of long-form animated series as well as some short-form content, was carried in ...

block from

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair, Inc., doing business as Sinclair Broadcast Group, is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb o ...

launched on both Sinclair stations and

This TV This TV (also known as This TV Network and alternately stylized as thisTV) was an American free-to-air television network owned by Allen Media Broadcast Networks, LLC, part of the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios. Originally ...

, but had no association with a traditional broadcast network otherwise, KidsClick eventually closed on Match 29, 2019.

Scheduling

Officially the network preferred the block to air from 7:00 a.m. to noon in each

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...

, though there were local scheduling variances in some areas that may have moved it to different hours, to Sundays, or split the lineup between Saturday or Sunday, along with local pre-emptions of select shows.

The CW Plus The CW Plus is a secondary national broadcast television broadcast syndication, syndication service feed of The CW, whose controlling stake of 75% is owned by Nexstar Media Group, with Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery holding their ow ...

stations in the Central,

Mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...

, and Alaska time zones time zones also aired the block one hour earlier or later, depending on the local time zone, as The CW Plus operates separate feeds based on the network's Eastern and

Pacific time zone The Pacific Time Zone (PT) is a time zone encompassing parts of western Canada, the western United States, and western Mexico. Places in this zone observe standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−08:00 ...

scheduling for primetime shows.

San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...

CW affiliate KMYS split the Vortexx block over two days, between early Sunday and early Monday mornings before 5:00 a.m. due to an existing arrangement to air Fox's '' Weekend Marketplace'' paid programming block in lieu of sister station KABB.

WTVW WTVW (channel 7) is a television station in Evansville, Indiana, United States, serving as a ''de facto'' owned-and-operated station of The CW. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Nexst ...

Evansville, Indiana Evansville is a city in Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 118,414 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is Indiana's List of cities in Indiana, third-most populous city after India ...

(which quickly become a CW affiliate on January 31, 2013, due to the

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market *Marketing, the act of sat ...

's former affiliate going dark) was unable to schedule the block when it initially began its affiliation with the network, due to contractual obligations to paid programming slots and existing syndicated E/I programming on Saturday mornings through March 2013. The station began carrying Vortexx in its network-recommended timeslot on April 6, 2013, with the station's acquired E/I programming moving to Sunday afternoons.

Video-on-demand

On April 29, 2013,

announced a separate partnership with Kabillion to add programming from the Vortexx block to the existing Kabillion

service for cable providers. The programs were listed on the service without any separate Vortexx subdivision under their individual show titles, with Vortexx promotional advertising. The shows currently remain on Kabillion with other advertising, even after the closure of Vortexx.

Programming

Most of the block's programming aired in high definition, with older

standard definition Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a similar resolution to the ...

content presented in 4:3 or

widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratio (image), aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ...

with stylized

pillarbox The pillarbox effect occurs in widescreen video displays when black bars ( mattes or masking) are placed on the sides of the image. It becomes necessary when film or video that was not originally designed for widescreen is shown on a widescreen ...

ing and windowboxing. Vortexx only ran an hour of programming that met the FCC's educational programming guidelines; as a result, The CW's affiliates handled the responsibility of filling the remaining two hours,

cable-subchannel affiliates had E/I-compliant programs not acquired from the syndication market built into the national schedule, alleviating stations carrying CW network programming though that feed from the responsibility of purchasing the local rights to such programs.

Former programming

Original programming

Programming from
4Kids TV 4Kids TV (often stylized as 4K!DSTV and formerly known as FoxBox from September 14, 2002 to January 15, 2005) was an American television programming block and Internet-based video on demand children's network operated by 4Kids Entertainment. ...

Acquired programming

Special programming

† - Program transitioned from Kids' WB
‡ - Program transitioned from The CW4Kids/Toonzai

Notes

References

{{Navboxes, , list1 = {{Former KidsTVBlocksUSA {{The CW {{Kids' WB {{Animated television series created for syndication Brokered programming The CW Television channels and stations established in 2012 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2014 2012 American television series debuts 2014 American television series endings Television programming blocks in the United States