Actor Bringing Reading Rainbow to iPad
A classic educational television show makes a comeback in an app version.
Photo courtesy of Apple
Reading Rainbow is offering audiences a new digital look.
The PBS educational program, which went off the air in 2009 due to a lack of funding, was the third longest-running program in the network's history.
Now actor LeVar Burton, the show's longtime host, is helping revive the program in a different medium.
Burton's new RRKidz company, which has global rights to the program, is producing a Reading Rainbow app for iPad and some Android devices.
The app is free, and includes a limited subscription, reports TechCrunch; users can get unlimited additional books--RRKidz has signed deals with several children's book publishers--with a monthly $9.99 subscription. (Company co-founder Mark Wolfe told TechCrunch that they opted for a subscription model so that parents wouldn't be put in a position of saying no to buying more books.)
Investors in the project include Raymonds Capital and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
