4Kids TV

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 News Corporation and 4Kids Entertainment, replacing Fox Kids, which the network announced it would discontinue as a result of the 2001 purchase of Fox Family Worldwide by The Walt Disney Company (which resulted in much of the content featured on the block moving to Disney's networks and blocks). The block was rebranded as 4Kids TV on January 22, 2005. 4Kids Entertainment was fully 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 FCC broadcast standards.

The programming block aired on Saturday mornings in most areas of the United States, though some stations carried it on Sundays (often due to scheduling conflicts resulting from the block airing on stations affiliated with other minor networks that had their own older children's anime program blocks which competed with FoxBox/4Kids TV, including the Kids' WB on The WB and later The CW, and for its first year, the Disney's One Too block on UPN). On October 2, 2007, 4Kids Entertainment announced it would program a competing Saturday morning lineup for The CW, the new block, The CW4Kids (later renamed Toonzai, with the original name becoming a secondary brand), premiered 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 on September 23, 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, ending Fox's nearly two-decade commitment to children's animation programming. 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 (such as Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Disney Channel). 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 (particularly those made before the 2012 auction of most of 4Kids' assets to Saban Brands).

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 (including those owned by the network that were acquired through its 1996 merger with New World Communications and those acquired through that deal that were owned by Tribune Broadcasting, now Nexstar Media Group) 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 (although some Fox stations, including those owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group—the vast majority of its stations had carried Fox's previous children's blocks, decided to decline the block anyway due to existing commitments to syndicated programs compliant with Children's Television Act recommendations).

As of 2024, some former 4Kids TV shows (such as Chaotic (only in Spanish), Dinosaur King, G.I. Joe: Sigma 6, Sonic X, and various entries in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise) are made available to stream via the free ad-supported Tubi streaming service, which launched on April 1, 2014 and was later acquired by Fox Corporation (which had recently been spun off from 21st Century Fox following that company’s acquisition by Disney one year prior in March 2019) on April 20, 2020. Sonic X is alao available on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Pluto TV, and Crackle respectively, though the latter service only carries seasons 1 and 2. Netflix also carried the first two seasons of Sonic X between December 2019 and December 2024, and again since December 2025. In addition, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is made available to stream on both the free ad-supported Pluto TV and subscription-based Paramount+ streaming services owned by Paramount Skydance following that property's 2009 acquisition by Nickelodeon, while various entries in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise and the English-language version of Chaotic are on NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service.

Programming

Former programming

FoxBox

Original programming

Acquired programming

Short-form programming

‡ - Program transitioned to 4Kids TV

4Kids TV

Original programming

Acquired programming

† - Program transitioned from FoxBox

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.

Relationship with Fox and broadcast ambiguities

The block had a somewhat infrequent 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 (and had earlier affiliated with the network through a 1994 multi-station affiliation deal—which prior to then, had been affiliated with ABC, NBC, or CBS) 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 WB or UPN affiliate, and later a MyNetworkTV or CW affiliate. The only exception was in St. Louis, Missouri, where Fox O&O (now affiliate) KTVI carried the block (although it aired 4Kids TV two hours earlier than the network's recommended scheduling for the block, beginning at 5:00 a.m., due to the station's Saturday morning newscast).

Some of 4Kids TV's programming (such as Winx Club, The Adrenaline Project, Magical DoReMi, Stargate Infinity, reruns of Back to the Future: the Animated Series, and Cubix) 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.

Markets where 4Kids TV did not run

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 their primary network's children's lineup on Saturday as scheduled.

Markets where 4Kids TV ran on an independent station

Notes

References

References

1. (January 22, 2002). "4Kids Entertainment Wins Bid To Program Fox Broadcasting Network's saturday Morning Block".
2. Flint, Joe. (January 20, 2002). "Fox, 4Kids Approach Deal For Children's Programming". The Wall Street Journal.
3. (May 14, 2002). "What's inside the Fox Box? 4Kids Entertainment Launches An All-New Kind Of Kids Broadcast Network Starting September 14, 2002".
4. Paula Bernstein. (January 18, 2002). "4Kids buys 4 hours from Fox Kids". [[Variety (magazine).
5. (July 23, 2001). "Disney buys Fox Family". [[CNN Money]].
6. (January 18, 2005). "Fox Box To Be Rebranded 4KIDS TV". Anime News Network.
7. (October 2007). "CW Turns Over Saturday Morning to 4Kids". TelevisionWeek.
8. Michael Schneider. (October 2, 2007). "CW turns to 4Kids on Saturdays". [[Variety (magazine).
9. (November 10, 2008). "4Kids Entertainment Reports Third Quarter 2008 Results and Settlement of Fox Litigation". QuoteMedia.com.
10. (November 24, 2008). "Fox Ends Saturday-Morning Cartoons". The New York Times.
11. Michael Schneider. (November 23, 2008). "Longform Ads Replace Kid Fare on Fox". Variety.
12. Paige Albiniak. (December 17, 2013). "Fox Stations Add SRP's Two-Hour STEM Block". [[Broadcasting & Cable]].
13. Amanda Kondolojy. (December 18, 2013). "Steve Rotfield Clears New Science and Technology Two Hour E/I Block With FOX Station Group". [[TV by the Numbers]].
14. "Anime".
15. Goldsmith, Jill. (2020-04-20). "Fox Closes Purchase Of Tubi In Day Of Streaming Deals".
16. (February 1, 2006). "4Kids Entertainment Announces New Setting For Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Television Series Beginning Fall 2006".
17. (September 1, 2004). "4Kids Entertainment Announces new lineup for Fox Box Fall 2004 One Piece And F-ZERO -- Gp Legend Added To Fox Box Lineup".
18. (February 23, 2003). "Fox Box Adds Pirate Islands To Line-Up".
19. (March 13, 2003). "4Kids Entertainment Adds Emmy Award Winning Show "Back To The Future" To Fox Box Lineup".
20. (September 30, 2006). ""ENnter The Code" 4Kids Tv Launches New Animated SEries Chaotic".
21. (September 11, 2008). "All New Chaotic Premiered on FOX Saturday, Sept. 13th".
22. (September 10, 2008). "New Chaotic: M'arrillian Invasion&trade: Exclusive World Premiere".
23. (September 7, 2005). "4Kids Entertainment Announces 2005 Fall Lineup For 4Kids TV".
24. (July 19, 2005). "4Kids Entertainment And MGA Entertainment Announce Bratz Television Show To Be Broadcast On 4Kids TV".
25. (September 11, 2007). "4Kids.tv Relaunches in Conjunction with Sixth Season of 4Kids TV on Fox". [[Business Wire]].
26. Brian Lowry. (July 18, 1996). "New World Vision : Murdoch's News Corp. to Buy Broadcast Group". [[Los Angeles Times]].
27. Carter, Bill. (May 24, 1994). "FOX WILL SIGN UP 12 NEW STATIONS; TAKES 8 FROM CBS". [[The New York Times]].
28. "Program Schedule". [[WUPA (TV).