| Teen Kids News | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | EKN Worldwide Kids News (September 2002-January 2003) |
| Genre | Children's television series News program |
| Created by | Al Primo |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 9 |
| No. of episodes | 150+ |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Al Primo Alan J. Weiss |
| Running time | Approx. 24 minutes (without commercials) |
| Production company(s) | Alan Weiss Productions |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | First-run syndication |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) |
| Original run | September 27, 2003 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Teen Kids News, initially titled EKN Worldwide Kids News, is an educational newsmagazine series aimed at children in the FCC category of 13 -16 years old, teenagers and their parents that debuted in first-run syndication the weekend of September 27, 2003. Teen Kids News discusses important issues in a format intended to educate and inform both children and adults. In-studio segments are shot at studios in Manhattan with field reports done on location around the country. The series meets the federal guidelines for educational and informational programming made mandatory by the Federal Communications Commission; the majority of affiliates that run the series typically air it on Saturday or Sunday mornings depending on the station, though a few air the series on Fridays in the morning or daytime time periods.
The series airs on over 200 TV stations to approximately 91% of the country[1] and is seen in 1,000 locations in 175 countries worldwide through the American Forces Network and is seen in 12,600 schools in a special in the classroom education feed.[2] Although the TV Parental Guidelines do not permit news programs to receive a rating, all episodes of the series are given a "TV-PG" rating.
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The series was created by Al Primo, former news director for KYW-TV in Philadelphia and WABC-TV in New York City and inventor of the popular Eyewitness News format, who launched the series as a project to give young people the opportunity to develop an interest in the journalism industry by delivering news and information to their peers. Teen Kids News was originally known as EKN Worldwide Kids News for the first half of the series' first season, before adopting its current name (though some viewers have found the title to be somewhat confusing in part due to its grammatical incorrectness). The series was the first attempt at a syndicated news show aimed at children since the cancellation of the similar News for Kids in 1996.
Educational content for the show is provided by the child-oriented Weekly Reader publication[3]. From its launch until the 2009-10 season, the series began each telecast with a summary of the week's news stories with footage supplied by Fox News via its Fox News Channel in the Classroom initiative; this was dropped in favor of airing special-interest stories on issues important to today's children, and features of children and teenagers helping out special causes, which was already featured following the news summary prior to that point. The series is formatted similarly to a newsmagazine and features special-interest, sports and entertainment stories; before certain news segments and before most commercial breaks, the series features specialized short pieces about environmental issues and offbeat stories. Sports segments are also provided during the show also in the form of special-interest pieces, and NBC Sports produces a segment that airs in the months leading up to the Olympics called "Olympic Insight" that began in 2008 prior to the Summer Olympics, featuring interviews and footage of American athletes competing in the Olympics.
The show also features educationally-based segments such as "Word", a game in which three words (many not commonly used in the vocabulary of the show's target demographic) are illustrated by their meaning. Entertainment stories have also been a common use on the series, generally aired as the final story of the telecast, and often featured interviews with up-and-coming actors and musicians which have included The Jonas Brothers, Corbin Bleu and Modern Family cast member Sarah Hyland, among others.
The show's primary anchor, Mwzanaa Brown, has been with the series since its September 2003 debut. All anchors and reporters for the program range in age between 10 and 20 years of age; the series never discloses the anchors' and reporters' last names, unlike other newscasts, so they are only identified on a first name basis. At the end of most seasons of the series, reporters who had grown too old or simply decided to leave the series were replaced by new reporters. Current Co-Anchors Livia and Siena.
The series has featured over the years a few reporters who are children of well-known television personalities and journalists including Haley Cohen, the show's original anchor from 2003 to 2007 and daughter of former CBS and Fox News journalist Paula Zahn, Jenna Ruggiero, reporter from 2003 to 2009 and daughter of popular New York City anchor/reporter Rosanna Scotto of Fox owned-and-operated station WNYW, and Cody Gifford, sports anchor during the 2007-08 season and son of Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford.
The advocacy group Children Now acknowledged Teen Kids News as one of eight children's programs which truly meet FCC educational requirements for children's programming and is listed as a preferred program by the group along with others such as Sesame Street.
Teen Kids News was nominated for a national Daytime Emmy Award for its series on the U.S.S.New York.
The show has also been acknowledged by People Magazine, TV Guide, the New York Daily News and featured on NBC's Today and Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Despite the positive reception among adults, the show is viewed as poor among teens due to its outdated nature and lack of interest among actual teen topics.
According to Nielsen Media Research, Teen Kids News received a 1.0 national rating for the November 2009 sweeps period. The series performed well among adult viewers with an estimated 600,000 women aged 18–54 and 400,000 men aged 18–54.
The series is very restrictive in its selection of sponsors for specific segments and those seen in its commercial break, and follows strict guidelines and maintains the distinction between editorial and sponsorship. Sponsors generally come from the fields of apparel, entertainment, health/beauty, electronics, retail and the U.S. government.
Toy companies and food companies are excluded from buying commercial space for the series and are not allowed to be sponsors on the series, certain other syndicated children's series also follow this policy as well and therefore ads airing on the show generally appeal to adult viewers instead of the program's target demographic.
Impressed by the positive message of the series, a programming executive at Rustavi 2 in the Republic of Georgia approached Al Primo to create a version of Teen Kids News for the country. The Georgian version of the series titled Sabavshvo Ambebi, debuted on March 22, 2009.[4]