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WeDriftEternal t1_j99jwr3 wrote

Because of a law passed by the US putting regulations on children's TV shows during the 90s. The real effect of this wasn't quite a thing until the late 90s and got solidified shortly after in the early 2000s as all the broadcasters were on board and business models had changed.

Basically, children's TV was a free for all of all types, local, national, acquired overseas content, lvie action, cartoons, just bonkers and go crazy with it.

This lead to tons of kids programming on broadcast since it did pretty well, especially in certain hours, like before school and saturday morning. Animation became the go to here, for lots of reasons, but they aren't important.

So while the 80s and 90s were absolutely filled with all types of childrens animated shows, some good, bad, for younger kids, or teens, experimental or classic -- lots of options and the ratings were good so things were good, keep watching! Its doing great, we can take chances, and we can invest in this.

But then in the mid-late 90s a law passed earlier was more cracked down on-- it forces broadcast networks to make a certain amount of 'Educational & Informative' (called E/I) content, airing roughly 1-2 hours per day.

So this content can be anything, but it was mandatory conent, and most cartoons and stuff didn't meet its needs. Instead you'd often just purchase some shit syndicated show (like some guy with animals, or an educational cartoon). And really the only place for this, was the same time as kids TV.

So you basically cut out a big chunk of kids TV every single day.

Lots more happened, but it gets technical and less ELI5... but suffice it to say, a lot of content in kids areas got pushed out or FAR more highly selective for the same time slots, and thus, the boom shifted away from kids animation on broadcast networks more to cable nets that could content with lower ratings and more niche content. Broadcast just didn't need to recompete to regain that audience, it wasn't worth it.

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A_Meal_of_Pain t1_j99qzi4 wrote

It was also the end of the era in which most children watched their cartoons in Saturday morning, because broadcast television was becoming less of a big deal and there was always cartoons on one of the cable channels.

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onarainyafternoon t1_j9amep3 wrote

I've really only noticed educational cartoons for children that are younger than six or seven years old. Am I just missing the ones for older kids?

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DueCharacter5 t1_j9aujz4 wrote

Carmen Sandiego, and like op mentioned, there were a ton of animal shows. I didn't watch them regularly, as I was basically in middle/high school when the shift really happened, but I remember them being on for the first hour or two before cartoons started.

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CryptidGrimnoir t1_j9c0qhw wrote

Well, at least for PBS, some of their shows leaned a bit older than six or seven.

As far as PBS is concerned, Arthur and Cyberchase were perfectly fine for six year olds to watch, but their more complex story-telling made them more popular with older children. For a while, they were even part of the "PBS Kids Go!" block, which was specifically marketed to older elementary schoolers.

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Maninhartsford t1_j9c2zqb wrote

A lot of the ones on broadcast claimed to be educational because of the morals taught. If you ever watched Disney's One Saturday Morning, that's what the light bulb coming in at the end of the theme song and the announcer saying "in illuminating television" was about.

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methodwriter85 t1_j9e7kj6 wrote

One interesting thing is that Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego was part of the 90's push for educational content, but unfortunately it disappeared because the information given by the show would quickly get outdated. There are some episodes where they actually had to put up a disclaimer,

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Pool_Shark t1_j9bprsf wrote

So did a show like Hysteria fall under the E/I category since it was educational ?

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smashfest t1_j9d99lu wrote

I’m pretty sure Hysteria was created as a direct response to the new E/I regulations, same with shows like Science Court

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WeDriftEternal t1_j9bxp0e wrote

I'm not familiar with that show. If you want references, today they must be labeled E/I, so you can look at tv guide and see what types of shows count

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