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Sprout has launched original series Dot, about a girl looking to strike a balance between technology and unplugged play. It’s got a fitting creator in Randi Zuckerberg, an early Facebook employee—alongside her brother Mark—who ran the company’s marketing programs and live-streaming initiatives.
Zuckerberg is the editor-in-chief of Dot Complicated, a multimedia platform dedicated to “untangling” our increasingly wired lives; it’s also the name of a book written by the mother of two. “I’m nervous that if we don’t talk to kids about balance when they’re young,” Zuckerberg says, “they’ll never be able to recover that.”
Season one of Dot features 52 10-minute episodes. It’s Zuckerberg’s first children’s series. She also produced the unscripted shows Startup Silicon Valley for Bravo and Quit Your Day Job for Oxygen, and plays a mentor for aspiring entrepreneurs on the latter one.
Formerly PBS Kids Sprout, Sprout streamlined its name when NBCUniversal bought out PBS three years ago. With a new season of Sesame Street premiering on HBO in January, Zuckerberg says there’s an opportunity for Sprout to reach young viewers with its topical programs. “We need next-generation shows that deal with modern children,” she says.
