Okay, I thought I was going crazy, or that at least that the cable company was messing with my mind. Playhouse Disney has disappeared. Well, yes, I'm partially right. Apparently the powers that be over at the Big Ears have downsized the Playhouse Disney lineup. For those of you beyond preschool parenting years, Playhouse Disney is simply the block of programming aimed at preschoolers from early morning until about noon on The Disney Channel. It was commercial free (save a few surprisingly subtle "sponsored by" spots) and offered sweet, innocent, fun and age-appropriate shows for the little ones.
While there are a few of the programs that have been on PD still showing, the PD branding, lack of commercials and preschooler friendly bump and segue spots have disappeared. Between shows the airtime is NOW packed with ads for Hannah Montana, Zack and Cody, High School Musical and all things Tweener. Blah.
As my loyal readers know, we aren't a huge kids TV household, but I do allow them to watch a little bit in the morning and afternoons during "strategic" times for Mommy -- my coffee time and dinner prep time. I don't cloister my girls, but I do want to control, as much as I can, the flow of what commercial crud is forced into their line of sight. We are in the process of de-commercializing their wardrobe (sorry girls, no more Princess clothing...books or movies only), trying to de-"plastic" their toys and basically turn them into little Luddites (just kidding). Seriously, I don't see any reasonable need for them to even know who in the world Hannah Montana is...she would not contribute anything positive to their childhoods.
I'm hoping that the reason for this programming change is a preschool-dedicated channel similar to Noggin and Sprout in the offing, considering the switch to Digital is coming in a few weeks.
Tell me what you think.
3 comments:
I noticed the same thing. We get lucky here right now because with Dish we get 2 disney channels (east coast and west coast) so I have a better chance of getting the cartoons during the times I need them.
That is such a bummer! I hadn't noticed, because we tend to watch only our DVR shows, which I love, because I can fast forward commercials if there are any. Our cable also offers "on-demand TV," so we watch the Berenstein Bears on the pre-school demand channel. No commercials there. Hooray!
We have free on-demand, as well. We love Berenstain Bears, Little Bill and Angelina Ballerina. The girls don't watch a ton of TV of videos, but when they do watch, I'd say only 25% is TV anyway.
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