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Unlike other children's television networks, Sprout usually airs programs (which are packaged into two 11-minute segments) that only last one segment.
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Sprout's schedule consists of programming carried by PBS (including those syndicated directly to that network's member television stations by outside distributors such as Sesame Street, Barney & Friends, Caillou, Super Why, and Thomas & Friends), acquired programming (such as LazyTown, Justin Time, Tree Fu Tom, and Poppy Cat), and originally produced programming (such as Pajanimals and The Chica Show). As a result, the "PBS Kids" branding was dropped from the network's name, renaming it as Sprout.
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On November 13, 2013, NBCUniversal acquired Apax and PBS's shares in the network, giving the company full ownership of the network, with its operations being merged into its NBCUniversal Cable subsidiary. When Apax Partners sold HIT Entertainment to Mattel on October 24, 2011, HIT's ownership interest in Sprout was not included in the deal and was retained by Apax Partners. When Sprout launched on September 26, it replaced the PBS Kids channel on some providers – helping give it an initial reach of 16.5 million pay television subscribers the first program to be broadcast on the network was Boohbah, airing at 6:00 a.m. On April 4, 2005, Comcast announced that the network's video on demand service, which would be named PBS Kids Sprout, would launch that day, and that the linear television network would launch later on Septemthe launch date for the television service was later delayed three weeks to September 26. On October 20, 2004, PBS announced that it had entered into a joint partnership with cable provider Comcast, and production companies HIT Entertainment and Sesame Workshop to launch a then-unnamed cable and satellite television channel aimed at preschool children.