About Sprout

 

Sprout was a 24-hour preschool channel for parents and kids to share together - from morning to night, they could share everything from birthday wishes to bedtime stories. Sprout followed the day of a preschooler from breakfast to bedtime with distinctive, interactive programming. Sprout launched in 2005 as a joint venture between PBS, HiT Entertainment, Sesame Workshop, and Comcast, and soon after was available in over fifty million homes. Sprout became fully acquired by NBCUniversal in 2013, and became a part of Universal Kids in 2017.

Some of Sprout’s gold-standard, curriculum-based programming included Caillou, The Berenstain Bears, Sesame Street, Barney & Friends, Thomas & Friends, Bob the Builder, Fireman Sam, The Hoobs, Make Way for Noddy, The Mighty Jungle, Mama Mirabelle's Home Movies, Angelina Ballerina, Teletubbies, Boohbah, Dragon Tales, Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks, Panwapa, Frances, Percy the Park Keeper, James the Cat, Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Pingu, Kipper, Super WHY!, Tree Fu Tom, Zerby Derby, Earth to Luna, The Wiggles, LazyTown, Zou, Boj, Wibbly Pjg, 64 Zoo Lane, Olive the Ostrich, Justin Time, Sarah and Duck, Stella and Sam, Lily's Driftwood Bay, Poppy Cat, dirtgirlworld, Dive Olly Dive, Rubbadubbers, Franny's Feet, Chloe's Closet, Fifi and the Flowertots, Roary the Racing Car, Noodle and Doodle, Jim Henson's Pajanimals, The Chica Show, Astroblast!, Ruff-Ruff, Tweet, and Dave, Clangers, Nina's World, Floogals, Super Wings, Terrific Trucks, Dot., The Ollie and Moon Show, and Kody Kapow. A few shows aired on Sprout at launch day, but were removed afterwards for being too inappropriate.

Sprout's programming blocks included The Good Night Show, The Let's Go Show, Musical Mornings with Coo, The Sunny Side Up Show, The Sprout Sharing Show, Sprout's Wiggly Waffle, and The Super Sproutlet Show.

Sprout was extremely popular. It had more than a million VOD orders, was available in over fifty million homes, and SproutOnline.com had 821,000 registered users. Once Comcast acquired NBCUniversal, a Saturday morning block of Sprout shows called NBC Kids premiered on the NBC channel and ran from 2012 to 2016. In 2013, Sprout and CafePress launched a website called Shop Sprout, which sold Sprout merchandise.