It's probably the oldest revolutionary technology in home entertainment, always a promise never lived up on. Digging through old magazines, I've stumbled across predictions that such technology would be commonplace by the distant future of the year 2000.
That 1967 article was a little off in most aspects. By its account, we should now be able to download dreams to a computer, and drive our cars through blasts of air in glass tubes. But it gave us a pretty accurate vision of Video on Demand (VoD).
Digital television is sluggish to take off. While quite a few North Americans have DTV sets, few subscribe to digital cable. Consumers are stalling to join this imminent revolution in home entertainment, because there's not enough content to make it worth while. Cable providers are stalling to provide more content, because there's not enough subscribers to make it worth while.
But two notables in the kids TV field, one on each side of the Canadian-American border, are starting to push a new way to see TV.
PBS Kids Sprout Excitingly enough, PBS has a digital cable station of PBS KIDS on the way to air this fall. But adding to that is a partnership between Comcast, PBS, Sesame Workshop, and HiT Entertainment will bring us PBS Kids Sprout, a VoD channel also to launch this fall.
Imagine being able to pause, fast forward, and rewind the program your child is watching, like Sesame Street, Bob the Builder, Barney & Friends, Thomas & Friends, Angelina Ballerina, Sagwa: The Chinese Siamese Cat, Caillou, The Berenstain Bears, Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Teletubbies, or Dragon Tales.
"This partnership provides a second home for the popular, award-winning children's programming block that PBS stations premiere in every home in America, free and over-the-air," added Pat Mitchell, PBS President and CEO. "Delivered locally on cable in association with our stations, and via satellite, the new service extends the access to these programs that children love and parents trust to 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
A category of "Children's Favorites" will circulate through other titles from PBS, like Boohbah, George Shrinks, Seven Little Monsters, Kratt's Creatures, Zoboomafoo, Archibald the Koala, Big Sister Little Brother, Adventures of Captain Pugwash, Three Friends & Jerry, Dennis & Gnasher, Fireman Sam, Pingu, and Noddy.
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