AHC: Saturday morning TV survives until the present day

Saturday morning children television officially died in 2014 with the rise of children networks and things like Youtube is their a way to make them survive until present day.
 
I would say find a way to slow down the inevitable introduction of cable television, but that would likely be ASB.
 
I've got it. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 fails in the Senate (In OTL VP Dick Cheney cast a tie breaking vote) Inside of that Act was the Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005. That was the law that mandated all TV in the US move from analog to digital exclusively. While eventually another Digital TV Act will be passed, it will be delayed, the original transition was completed in 2009, having been signed into law in 2005. In this ATL, we might not see a Digital TV Act until Obama is in office.

At any rate, with analog TV still around (for a little while longer, anyway), people will still use it, and there will still be a demand for tradition Saturday Morning Cartoons, especially in lower-income families. Once analog TV is transitioned away Saturday Morning Cartoons will still stick around a few more years, just like they did in OTL. With this set of circumstances Saturday Morning cartoons should easily still be around in 2017, if, less common.
 
I think Saturday Morning cartoons on broadcast TV was on borrowed time by the early 2000s for several major reasons (in no particular order of importance):
1. The proliferation of cable networks catering to children, which aired programming during key daytime and early evening hours (if not 24/7)
2. Cable becoming more common in American households (so more kids have access to, and watch, those cable networks)
3. Media consolidation placing several of the broadcast networks under the same corporate umbrellas as the children cable networks they were supposedly competing with. (For example, Disney owning both ABC and Disney Channel)
4. Generally (at least IMO) the lack of a clear children's programming strategy by the broadcast networks. They were defacto obligated to provide children's programming thanks to the Children's Television Act of 1990 (legally the obligation was on the local TV stations, but the networks took on the programming responsibilities on behalf of their affiliates), but had little clue on how to satisfy the Act's requirement for "educational and informational" programming.
5. The Act also made advertising to children more difficult, making children's programming less financially lucrative for the broadcast networks.

These problems combined to create an environment where children's programming just wasn't worth the hassle for the broadcast networks, resulting in the extinction of the classic Saturday morning blocks.

Given those conditions, you are going to need some MAJOR changes to significantly extend the lifespan of Saturday Morning TV. Butterflying away cable is nearly impossible, but you could butterfly away the Disney/ABC, Viacom/CBS, and Time-Warner/Turner mergers of the mid/late 1990s, allowing for more true competition in children's television. You could also tweak the Children's Television Act to allow for a greater variety of children's programming on television as opposed to the generic "educational and informative" programming specified in the Act, and make advertising to children easier so the networks make more money on children's programming.
 
Lew Grade's ATV doesn't loose its ITV franchise to Central TV in 1981. Therefore Tiswas isn't cancelled.

As a bonus neither is weekday show Pipkins, which survived into the early 1990s and therefore becomes as well remembered as Rainbow.
 

CECBC

Banned
US falls to Communism in the 30's and technological progression that leads to cable TV and internet is massively held back due to mismanagement of the economy and general corruption of the authoritarian Marxist government. Science becomes politicized as it did in the USSR and the brightest of the country flee to democratic countries abroad which further holds back any technological advancements leading to cable or internet viewing.

Into the modern era the state-owned television networks continue to broadcast children's Saturday morning television into the modern era with the government having little incentive to upgrade or change the system.
 
Into the modern era the state-owned television networks continue to broadcast children's Saturday morning television into the modern era with the government having little incentive to upgrade or change the system.

"Worker Twin powers, ACTIVATE!!"
"Shape of ... a tractor!"
"Form of ... the historical inevitability of Socialism!"

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The Worker Twins help an ethnic native improve the agricultural productivity of his assigned farmland.
 
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Was Central actually ATV, albeit fully regionalized (e.g. abandoning Elstree Studios and new studio complex in Nottingham) after winning the contract from the IBA?
I simply don't know.

I do know that we lost Pipkins and Tiswas because of it, but for some reason Central didn't cancel Crossroads until 1988. However, Central did redeem itself with Spitting Image and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
 
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