TVSquad

By virtue of the fact that I have both 1) two young boys aged five and under and 2) a bevy of cable channels to choose from, I wind up watching a fair amount of children's programming. Some shows are better than others, and some versions of shows are better than others. For instance, I don't mind Jo-Jo's Circus but want to tear my ears from my head during Dora the Explorer. I also could spend an hour laying out my feelings that Steve was by far the superior host of Blue's Clues.

What I had never really considered, though, was the effectiveness of the logos for each show. Thankfully Jason Spector has done so. He's looked at factors like design, emotional effectiveness and accurate representation of the show itself when analyzing the logos. For the sake of fairness he's excluded ones for shows like The Wiggles that contain the characters since they're too straight-forward and can skew things like emotional connection. Go read the whole thing for yourself.

As part of the split between them and Viacom, CBS will drop the Saturday morning block of programming airing under the "Nick Jr. on CBS" banner. That means no more repurposing of Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer or any other Nick properties. Come fall CBS will partner with DIC Entertainment for a three-hour block of programs that - and this is the important part - fulfill FCC requirements for kids shows. DIC currently does this exact same sort of thing for other networks such as Fox and Tribune Entertainment. Some of the shows included in the block will be Strawberry Shortcake, Trollz and others. The programming block will not be re-branded with DIC's name as it was with Nick Jr.