Culture

Reading Rainbow: LeVar Burton Ends 26-Year Run on Air

by Blaine Metzgar | August 28, 2009 at 07:41 am

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Reading Rainbow, the third-longest running children's show in PBS history, is ending its 26-year run on air this Friday, August 28, 2009. Host LeVar Burton, of Kunta Kinte and Star Trek: The Next Generation fame, has been hosting the 12-time Emmy winning series since its inception in 1983.

The show's run is ending, Grant explains, because no one — not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show's broadcast rights.

Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.

The only PBS children's shows to outlast the book-based kids classic were Sesame Street and Mister Rogers.

Even though the show will be taken off the air don't count Lavar completely out yet, Reading Rainbow will still be produced as educational videos for classrooms.

How do you feel about Reading Rainbow being cancelled? Will there still be butterflies in the sky? Can you still fly twice as high? I guess we'll just have to take a look in a book without the guidance of Reading Rainbow.