Many PBS Stations Reportedly Dumped Jan. 6 Hearing in Favor of Kids Shows Like Curious George

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Many PBS stations reportedly dumped Monday’s hearing by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol and instead showed kids shows.

Children’s programs including Curious George were showed in lieu of the committee hearing, reported The Washington Post on Wednesday. That day’s hearing began shortly after 10 a.m.,  whereas the June 9 hearing was in primetime and was carried by cable news and other stations.

PBS stations in states including, but not limited to, Wyoming, Michigan, Georgia, New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Arizona showed children’s programming – including Sesame Street, Donkey Hodie and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood – and relegated Monday’s hearing to online streaming.

The PBS station in North Carolina, following viewer complaints over not airing the primetime hearing, aired Monday’s hearing, according to the Post.

WyomingPBS station manager Terry Dugas told the Post, “We have a commitment to the parents in Wyoming to provide a ‘safe harbor’ on our main channel for their children during the day.” He told the outlet that his station has “received no complaints” as of Tuesday.

Monday’s hearing got 11 million viewers, while the June 9 hearing got 20 million viewers.

The Post noted the historical significance of not showing Monday’s hearing compared to hearings over another historical event that threatened American democracy and elections.

The reluctance to showcase the House hearings has a special historic irony. Public TV stations established themselves as a leading news source in the early 1970s by airing hundreds of hours of another congressional inquiry, the Senate Watergate hearings.

Those hearings spawned a nightly recap program hosted by Washington correspondents Robert McNeil and Jim Lehrer. The program became a hit, swelling public television’s audience and leading to a surge in pledge-drive contributions to stations before evolving into PBS’s signature news program, the “PBS NewsHour.”

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