'Reading Rainbow' Was Canceled After 26 Years Due to This Sad Reason

Publish date: 2024-05-15

Why did 'Reading Rainbow' get canceled after a 26-year run? PBS just isn't the similar with out the LeVar Burton collection. Keep reading for details.

Source: PBS

“Butterfly in the sky, I will be able to move two times as high. Take a look, it’s in a guide, a Reading Rainbow…”

You may not have in mind the specific tales, but you probably have in mind the lilting tune of the advent to PBS’s beloved show, Reading Rainbow.

Hosted via LeVar Burton, Reading Rainbow was the third-longest-running youngsters’s tv show in PBS history, after Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. But after a 26-year run, throughout which it gathered plenty of trustworthy fans, the display was pulled off the air.

Given its popularity and success, why would a precious display like Reading Rainbow get canceled? Keep reading for what you need to know.

Source: getty

Why did 'Reading Rainbow' get canceled?

Reading Rainbow premiered in 1983 with a simple premise. Each episode revolved round a unmarried theme and featured a youngsters’s e-book that inspired an journey with host LeVar Burton, and at the end of the story, youngsters gave their own reviews of the ebook.

The display explored a number of subjects like poverty, prison, and even the 9/Eleven attacks. Each episode additionally featured a visitor celebrity reading a tale. Over the show’s 26-year run, it featured cameos from the likes of Julia Child, Jim Henson (as Kermit the Frog), or even LeVar’s Star Trek co-star, Patrick Stewart.

But in January 2007, LeVar revealed that the display was coming to an finish and that he’d already shot Reading Rainbow's last episode. Although he was tight-lipped concerning the precise reason for the display’s end, he recommended that he wasn’t pleased with the "direction that the new producers were taking the program."

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It was later revealed that the display was ending for two reasons. One was that no one sought after to publish different hundred thousand greenbacks that have been wanted to renew the display’s broadcast rights, which integrated licensing books to read at the air. The 2nd was comparable to the investment factor, which was the direct result of a policy change that began with the Department of Education.

The key function of Reading Rainbow was to foster a love for studying in kids. When it was evolved in the early Nineteen Eighties, showrunners had been making an attempt to create a program that may inspire youngsters to forestall staring at so much TV and pick out up a e book instead.

John Grant, then-director of Reading Rainbow’s home station, WNED Buffalo, mentioned, “Reading Rainbow taught youngsters why to learn. You know, the love of studying — [the display] inspired youngsters to pick up a e book and to learn.”

But below the Bush management, the No Child Left Behind training coverage shifted the emphasis on teaching children how to read. Under these new guidelines, the Department of Education put its funding at the back of programming that was educating youngsters the fundamentals of studying, with an emphasis on tools like phonics and spelling.

Since Reading Rainbow assumed their target market had already mastered basic studying skills and was all for making a love for books, it wasn’t deemed important within the battle for literacy and lost its investment.

LeVar has been gunning for a Reading Rainbow revival for the reason that show’s cancelation in 2008, but for now, audiences can tune into his podcast, LeVar Burton Reads.

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