Kids WB To Become 4Kids Come Fall

The CW announced late Tuesday it will shut down the nearly 13-year-old Kids' WB! franchise at the end of this season and turn Saturday mornings over to 4Kids Entertainment, which has handled Fox's Saturday morning kids block for the past six years.

Under the five-year pact, 4Kids will program five hours of children's programming between 7 a.m. and noon on Saturdays on the CW starting September 2008. 4Kids will handle all national commercial advertising, and will share in ad revenue with the CW. The CW's share will be applied against a guarantee 4Kids will pay the net.

Kids' WB! repped the last inhouse Saturday morning network block to air original kids' fare. Once a staple of the broadcast nets alongside daytime and latenight, the webs mostly eliminated the timeslot by the turn of the decade. ABC now runs repeats from the Disney Channel, while NBC, CBS and Fox have already farmed out the timeslot to outside licensees.