Kids’ WB! Juggles Lineup

Don’t worry, kids: MegaMan NT Warrior is coming back to the Kids’ WB! schedule in spring 2004. In addition, Astro Boy will joins its Saturday morning lineup starting Jan. 17 and veteran series Static Shock will be added the weekday line-up on Monday, Jan. 5.

Kids’ WB! has ordered 26 new episodes of MegaMan NT Warrior, which premiered on the kids programming block last May and continued to thrive on Saturday mornings all summer before taking a break from the schedule this fall. Kids’ WB! licenses MegaMan NT Warrior from San Francisco-based ShoPro Entertainment, a subsidiary of ShoPro Japan.

Kids’ WB! also ordered 25 episodes of Astro Boy, an all-new show for the block. Astro Boy was created 50 years ago by Japanese anime pioneer, Osamu Tezuka, and was the first Japanese series to be imported to the U.S. The show is produced by Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan and Tezuka Productions and distributed in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Television.

Static Shock, which won the 2003 Humanitas Prize, is entering its fourth season on the Kids’ WB! Saturday morning line-up, and just beginning on weekdays.

Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.