[Archive 2009-09-10] American children's show Reading Rainbow ends 26 year run

Historical archive — originally published 2009-09-10. This report records what was known on that date. It is not current news; subsequent events may have changed the situation. Wikinews closed in May 2026.

Reading Rainbow, an American children's television series is to stop showing on television. It ceased to be shown on Friday after a 26 year long run because of a funding shortfall of several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the broadcast rights.

The PBS show has more than two-dozen Emmy awards, and its run is shorter only than Sesame Street and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Each episode of the show would focus on a theme in a specific book and then explore that theme through multiple stories. Each show would also provide recommendations for books that children should look for when they went to their library.

It is believed by some, including John Grant, that both the funding crunch and a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming contributed to ending the series.

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Text adapted from American children's show Reading Rainbow ends 26 year run by Wikinews contributors under CC BY 2.5. Paragraphs have been selected and abridged, and formatting adjusted. Contributor history.