Qubo (/ˈkjuːboʊ/ KEW-boh; stylized as qubo) was an American entertainment brand for children between the ages of 5 and 14. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, it consisted of a 24-hour free-to-air television network alternatively known as "Qubo Channel" (available as a digital terrestrial television service on owned-and-operated stations and some affiliates of corporate sister Ion Television, as well as on some pay-TV providers), a video on demand service, and a weekly programming block on Ion Television and Ion Plus.
Following Ion Media's acquisition by the E. W. Scripps Company, Qubo Channel ceased all operations on February 28, 2021.[1]
In May 2006, Ion Media Networks, NBCUniversal (which owned a 32% interest in Ion Media at the time),[2] Corus Entertainment, Scholastic Corporation and Classic Media (now part of NBCUniversal's DreamWorks Animation) announced plans to launch a new, multi-platform children's entertainment brand known as Qubo, oriented towards providing "educational, values-oriented programming" targeted towards children between 5 and 14 years of age. The brand would encompass programming blocks on NBCUniversal and Ion's respective flagship broadcast television networks (NBC, Telemundo and Ion Television), a video on demand service, a website, and a standalone 24-hour network to be carried as a digital subchannel on terrestrial television stations owned by Ion Media Networks and by pay-TV providers.[3]
Qubo president Rick Rodríguez (who formerly served as a programming executive at Discovery Communications) stated in a 2008 interview with Multichannel News that Qubo was designed as a bilingual brand, offering programming in both English and Spanish (with the latter's audio available through the SAP audio feed on most programming, along with the "CC3" closed captioning channel for Spanish text). While Qubo would initially carry Spanish-language dubs of its programming for both its Telemundo block and (through the SAP audio feed) the standalone 24-hour network, Rodríguez did not outrule the possibility of developing original children's programming geared to Latino audiences through Qubo in the future. He felt that the market for Spanish-language children's programming had been underserved by existing outlets (such as Telemundo and Univision), and envisioned the possibility of programming which could "bridge the gap" and educate Spanish-speaking children on the English language, and vice versa.[3]
The Qubo brand was intended to represent a "building block for kids," as reflected by its logo. The name "Qubo" was chosen because it had a "fun" sound, and the root word, "cube", was nearly crosslingual in both English and Spanish (cubo).[3]
Qubo launched on September 9, 2006, with the premiere of weekend morning blocks on NBC (which aired exclusively on Saturday mornings, replacing Discovery Kids on NBC, a weekly block programmed by the Discovery Kids cable network) and Telemundo (which aired on both Saturday and Sunday mornings, replacing Telemundo Kids). This was followed by the September 15 introduction of a daytime block on Ion Television (then known as i: Independent Television), which initially aired on Friday afternoons. At launch, its programming included the first-run animated series Dragon (produced by Scholastic), Jacob Two-Two and Jane and the Dragon (produced by Canada-based animation studio Nelvana), alongside VeggieTales and its spin-offs 3-2-1 Penguins! and Larryboy: The Cartoon Adventures (produced by Classic Media subsidiary Big Idea) – marking the first time that VeggieTales had ever been broadcast as a television program.[4][5][6]