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Chose to watch PBS to view a Kids show; partly because as a college student I have limited Income and can’t afford cable, and partly because I grew up watching the channel. I found website that had live streaming of certain cable network shows. When I first signed up and began watching, the end of Sesame Street was on. I watched on a few minutes of the show and continued watching the channel through the next show. The show that followed, which I watched In full, was Angelina Ballerina: Next Steps. I remember when I was younger and used to watch Angelina Ballerina.
The show as a cartoon-style show detailing the life of a young mouse aspiring to be a ballerina. Not having watched the show for maybe 15 years, I was surprised about a number of things. First of all, I was surprised the show still existed. They seemed to have remade the name, adding on ‘Next Steps’, so they seemed to have extended the story so they could tell new stories and not Just replay old episodes. Another thing that surprised me was that the characters seemed to be more digitized. It wasn’t the old sort of scratchy drawings that I remember; it was a more up to date version of he show that I was watching.
The cartoons were more clear and accurate than the drawings that they used to be. This particular pair of episodes shown in a half hour segment was more up to date than Imagined. It told the story of Angelina and her friend Alice, but with supporting characters. Angelina and Alice go to different schools and although they still like similar things, their interests seem to have slightly changed than when I watched the show as a little girl. The supporting characters that were added into the storyline added some cultural variety to the show. There were different colored mice ND mice that had different accents as well.
They also seemed to try to extend their viewers to more boys rather than Just girls. There were multiple ‘boy mouse’ dancers wearing ‘boyish’ clothes (rather than a dancing uniform), and there seemed to be more collaboration between boy and girl mice. As mentioned earlier, I was surprised at how much the show had changed. Part of the reason is that the last few episodes of Sesame Street were exactly the same as I remember when I used to watch the show as a child. The only thing that seemed to be updated was the closing credits with Big Bird dancing in the background while the reedits rolled down the opposite side of the screen.
When Sesame Street ended, there were a number of commercials that played. First, the sponsors were mentioned saying “brought to you by… ” In a woman’s clear and concise voice. The National Coalition of Resting People’ was the first sponsor of Sesame Street. They were promoting a good night’s sleep and stating facts about how it was good for your health. Another sponsor was Daniel Tigers Neighborhood which was a PBS show. I assumed it to be a new show they had released because they told the viewing times and almost a summary of the show and its characters.
The last Sponsor listed was United Health Care asking kids “How many Fruit and Vegetables did you eat today? ‘. Next a commercial break came, although there wasn’t much of a Seaway between 1 OFF commercial that played along with it. Beaches Resorts, PAN, Earth’s Best Organic, Corporation for Public Broadcasting all played commercials. These commercials all seemed to promote health and safe choices to the viewers of this station. The end credits of Sesame Street were shown and then another set of commercials were shown. These commercials included Cyberspace (a PBS show), Support PBS foundation sage, and Hard Rock Hotel.
The Hard Rock Hotel was then named as a sponsor to the show. Angelina Ballerina: Next Step came next. After the show another set of commercials came including Beside. Org, HIT Entertainment, Hard Rock Hotel, Wild Karats (PBS Show), The Organism Guys (Message about germs from American Public Television), Side the Science Kid (PBS Show, up next), First 5 California, Boeing, Vinci- technology for early life, Rose Hills Foundation, Arthur Fining Davis Foundation. Even though the show seemed to have advanced and become more up to date, I as surprised that they didn’t put any sort of technology references in it.
There were no advertisements during any of the programs, only afterwards. I remember that from watching the shows as a child, but I was surprised that they hadn’t changed that aspect of their shows. Another thing I noticed about the shows and their commercials was that the sponsor messages seemed to blend with the commercials. It was hard to tell the difference between the two. It seemed to me that Angelina Ballerina: Next Step is trying to create a larger viewers. It seems like they want more than Just young, white girls to be watching the show.
They seemed to have included more material in the show for boys to be interested in as well. I think if a girl has a younger brother he might be interested in watching the show with her because of more male involvement in the storyline. I also noticed, as stated above, that there seemed to be more inclusion in the show of other races rather than Just white children. They seem to have included Latino, African American, and Asian mice into the character list of the show. This could increase their viewer ship to more than Just white children. The commercials for Hotels or Beach Resorts seemed to surprise me.
I suppose they can’t really advertise for a trip to Disney Parks because they aren’t affiliated with Disney so they had to go in another direction. Both the Hard Rock Hotel and Beach Resorts commercials showed Families and more particularly children, but I was surprised at their choice of commercial. It seemed interesting to me that a child would be watching the show, see the commercial and want to go to the Hard Rock Hotel. It didn’t seem like something a child would see and ask their parents to go to. The choice of other commercials did not surprise me however.
From past analysis, I found it typical to advertise for other shows on the Network. There were plenty of ads for other PBS shows that could be viewed later on in the day or ‘up next’. From watching the channel when I was younger, I was also not surprised for the commercials from American Public Television, or from the Rather Fining Davis Foundation, or from United Health Care, etc. PBS has always supported young adult health and expanding of children’s knowledge. That came as no surprise that their commercials revolved highly around this matter.