Teen Kids News Renewed For Year 3

This just in : Teen Kids News is a go for season three.

And thanks to a new deal with Viacom-owned stations in Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, and Providence, the syndicated weekly FCC-friendly show has bumped its coverage of the country from 83% to 90%, according to show creator/distributor Al Primo, who pioneered the "Eyewitness News" format.

Teen Kids News will launch its third season in September, though it essentially runs on a 52-week schedule, with 26 fully original episodes and the rest consituting a remix of stories from those 26 plus new pieces (much as 60 Minutes does).

Stations get a 90-second window to cut in their own local teen news features--say Teen News Sacramento or Saginaw--according to Primo, who partnered with Weekly Reader on the kid-to-kid news series.

The show is offered to stations on a barter basis--they pay for the show in ad time rather than cash. Primo says some of that ad time will be taken up by a 26-week flight from the New York Times, and a buy from Revlon.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.