The PBS Favorite Reading Rainbow Canceled
August 28th 2009 by Dr.MOZ in Books and Toys, Movies and Media
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the last episode of the PBS favorite Reading Rainbow hosted by LeVar Burton airs today. Apparently, no one wanted to cover the six-figure fees needed to continue the third longest-running children’s show in PBS history. Despite it’s popularity (only Sesame Street and Mister Rogers ran longer), the show’s focus
of teaching the love of reading will make way for the more modern approach (read “approach funded by Dept. of Ed.”) which is teaching the mechanics of reading. On that note, if PBS can develop a show based on mechanics that runs half as long as Reading Rainbow’s 26 years on air…I’ll be floored.
It seems like a short-sided move to cancel one of the PBS’s most popular shows in history, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Reading Rainbow on a different network in the future. Who knows…perhaps one of the execs at Nickelodeon will take note of it’s popularity with parents through the decades, see today’s response to the news on Twitter, and do the math.
What are your Reading Rainbow memories? Did you watch it as a child, or did your children enjoy the show? Click on the bubble to open the comment box below.
Have fun and stay healthy,
Dr.MOZ
> more about the last episode at NPR
August 29th, 2009 at 8:58 am
This makes me so sad! I can still hear the Reading Rainbow song in my head. I remember watching this as a child and it MAKING ME WANT TO READ!!!! I for one, am scared that this generation of children will be without the good foundational skills and moral values that these kinds of PBS shows focus on. Instead; they iCarly and spongebob fanatics! (I like those too, don’t get me wrong.) But children need balance and I think that PBS programming offered the right kind of balance.
August 29th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Man I used to watch this show all the time at day care! What a bummer….
August 30th, 2009 at 11:11 am
I’m so sorry that this wonderful show has priced itself right out of existence as it was one of the few kids’ shows that I looked forward to watching with my daughters. We have a bookshelf full of books that the girls actually begged me to buy as birthday or other special occasion gifts for them that they still request for bedtime stories. Any show that is good enough to make kids ask for reading material as gifts may be worth MORE than six figures in my humble opinion. After all what are we left with?
I find it so sad that shows like Hannah Montana and Zack and Cody (cute but not exactly educational) seem to come up with the funds necessary to stay on the air while a classic production like Reading Rainbows gets the ax!
August 30th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
That’s disappointing news, my children have really enjoyed the program. Good educational programs are getting harder to come by. Maybe you’ll be right and Nickelodeon or another network will pick it up.
August 31st, 2009 at 11:43 am
I personally haven’t watched Reading Rainbow but I know my young sister used to watch it all the time when she was a kid. It was one of the programs that I think was very well suited for kids.
September 14th, 2009 at 9:03 am
It is very upsetting that Reading Rainbow has been cancelled, I watched that show all the time when I was a kid. Making a show on the mechanics of reading or learning reading faster couldn’t possibly be near as interesting as Reading Rainbow was.
December 19th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
I watched Reading Rainbow when I was a kid. It is sad that it was canceled. I remember watching that show and reading along.