Since I’m not a parent, I’d never quite understood what accounted for the ubiquity of Dora the Explorer until I read Brooks Barnes and Amy Chozick’s article on the rise of Disney Junior. It turns out, however, that Nick Jr. essentially had a monopoly in cable programming aimed at preschool kids. But now there’s Disney Junior and “in the year since Disney introduced Disney Junior, a channel aimed at the tiniest of viewers, Nick Jr. ratings have plummeted more than 50 percent, according to Nielsen.”
Interestingly, Dora is probably America’s most famous cartoon Hispanic, and there are also hints of Latin American roots for Disney Junior’s Princess Sofia the First.
