In 1997, taking advantage of the tightened Children's Television Act regulations instituted the previous year by the Federal Communications Commission that required broadcasters to carry three hours of educational programming each week, CBS launched an all-"educational/informational" Saturday morning lineup for the 1997-98 season, known as Think CBS Kids. The block consisted entirely of live-action series – including the youth-oriented game showWheel 2000, which aired simultaneously on the Game Show Network; Sports Illustratedfor Kids ; The Weird Al Show; Fudge; The New Ghostwriter Mysteries ; and Beakman's World. The one-minute youth-oriented series of segments, In the News, was also briefly revived as part of the new block, hosted by Dan Raviv, a Washington, D.C.-based correspondent for CBS Radio News. Think CBS Kids suffered from low ratings as a whole, resulting the network canceling most of the block's shows after four months. Fudge was subsequently replaced by reruns of CBS Storybreak.
Relaunch as the ''CBS Kidshow''
In January 1998, CBS entered into a programming agreement with the Canada-based animation studio Nelvana to program the Saturday morning time slot allocated to children's programming. Think CBS Kids was planned to relaunch as the CBS Kidshow on September 19 of that year, but CBS delayed the block's relaunch to October 3. The new block featured several first-run series co-produced by Nelvana, CBS and Scottish Television such as Anatole, Mythic Warriors, Rescue Heroes and Flying Rhino Junior High. The premiere of Mythic Warriors was further delayed due to its complicated animation techniques; reruns of Tales from the Cryptkeeper aired in Mythic Warriors' time slot until it premiered on November 7. In June 2000, a few months after Viacom completed its $37 billion merger with CBS Corporation, CBS reached an agreement with new corporate cousin Nickelodeon to air programming from the cable channel's preschool-oriented block Nick Jr. beginning that September. Prior to the deal, former Nick Jr. series Rupert moved to the CBS Kidshow block in January 1999, as part of an agreement in which both it and another animated series, Franklin, swapped networks. The CBS Kidshow block ended its run on September 9, 2000, and was replaced the following week on September 16 by Nick Jr. on CBS. Nelvana then proceeded to create a new Saturday morning cartoon block, the Bookworm Bunch, for CBS' non-commercial rival, PBS, which premiered two weeks later. Several of the series were also rerun in Scotland as part of co-producer STV's wknd@stv block in the early 2010s.
Programming
Scheduling variances and pre-emptions
Although the block was intended to air on Saturday mornings, some CBS affiliates deferred some programs over the course of the Think CBS Kids/CBS Kidshow block's run to Sunday or early Saturday morning time slots or tape delayed the entire block in order to accommodate local weekend morning newscasts, CBS News Saturday Morning or other programs of local interest. Other stations pre-empted some programs outright for these same reasons, as well as due to professional and college sports telecasts scheduled by CBS or its stations, although most affiliates aired the block in its entirety.
