from IMDB.com:

Big Bird Flies to Ad-Supported TV

Comcast plans to announce on Monday that it will introduce a new commercial 24-hour digital cable channel aimed at preschoolers that will feature reruns of many of the programs for tots currently airing on PBS, the New York Times reported today (Wednesday). Comcast is partnering with PBS, Sesame Workshop and HIT Entertainment, producer of Barney and Friends and Bob the Builder. In an interview with the newspaper, Sesame Workshop's Joan Ganz Cooney remarked: "I don't like pitching products to young children and I never have. ... But to some degree that is nostalgia for a time that is past. The whole society, the whole business is so commercialized, even public television. This is another way of getting PBS's excellent programming to children." Education professor Nancy Carlsson Paige, who is a consultant for PBS flagship station WGBH Boston, told the Times: "We aren't adequately funding public television and public programming for children. PBS doesn't have enough funds and so they are doing this."

This is fantastic. Thank you, Newt Gingrich, and other Republicans, for pushing quality education media into the murky, conservative sea of commerce. Thanks to your fear of Liberal ideas, our future generations will someday be able to click and buy toys right from their bedrooms. Soon, they'll be forced to watch Bill Nye the Faith Guy, discussing the "science" of how God created the world in 7 days, and colorful shows about intolerance.