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Smile (shortened from its former name of Smile of a Child) was an American Christianfree-to-airtelevision network owned and operated by the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The network was aimed at children aged 2-12 and offered a mixture of children's religious and family-oriented programming. The network was founded as the television branch of TBN's Smile of a Child ministry, created by TBN co-founder Jan Crouch.
Smile was also available on pay-TV providers as well as on some streaming services that offer TBN's six U.S. networks., in addition to worldwide satellite and streaming availability.
In addition, the parent network TBN carried a "Smile" block on Saturday mornings.
The channel closed on January 12, 2025.
History
Early history, as Smile of a Child
Smile of a Child logo used from December 24, 2005, to December 31, 2016; the 'butterfly' element in the logo is made up a monogram of Jan Crouch's initials with her maiden name of Jan Wendell Bethany.
Founded as Smile of a Child TV by TBN co-founder Jan Crouch, the network was developed and named after Smile of a Child, a children's outreach ministry founded by Jan and Paul Crouch in the 1990s to provide services and donations to needy children worldwide. The network launched on December 24, 2005 at 3:00 a.m. Eastern Time, with the holiday-themed special Martin the Cobbler as its inaugural program.
Smile was initially available as a 24-hour-a-day service on all platforms, and debuted on digital subchannels of TBN owned-and-operated station in 13 markets. Over the subsequent years, Smile expanded its national coverage to all of TBN's owned-and-operated and affiliated stations in nearly 40 markets, carried usually on the fifth subchannel (for example, if the local TBN station broadcasts on channel 17, then Smile would be carried on digital subchannel 17.5). The network's original butterfly logo is a visual representation of the initials of Jan Crouch's maiden name, JWB (Janice Wendell Bethany).
Multicasting consolidation with JUCE TV
On June 1, 2015, Smile was combined into a single subchannel with a sister network JUCE TV (which targets teenagers and young adults 13 to 30 years of age), under a timeshare arrangement. As a result of the realignment, for over-the-air viewers, Smile was originally reduced to a 9-hour daily programming schedule (from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern Time) on the third subchannel occupied by JUCE (which continues to air over its existing subchannel slot for the remainder of the broadcast day) on the 38 stations owned directly by TBN and through its subsidiary Community Educational Television. The following week, the timeshare was modified so that Smile would air from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Eastern), with JUCE airing the remainder of the day, giving each network a daily 12-hour window on its O&O stations' DT3 subchannels.
The change, which was required due to multiplexing limitations at the time with TBN's over-the-air stations, was required due to the launch of TBN Salsa, a digital subchannel network targeting English-speakingLatino viewers which launched on that date.
Though it had a reduced presence on broadcast television, Smile continued to maintain a 24-hour-day schedule via live stream on TBN's website, and mobile and digital media players as well as on select cable and satellite providers that carry the TBN multicast networks, as was the case before the over-the-air consolidation of the two networks. The network rebranded simply as "Smile" on January 1, 2017, with an updated network imaging, including its logo and continuity.
Resumption of 24-hour service
On January 1, 2020, TBN resumed offering a 24-hour feed of Smile on its multicast tier over the DT3 subchannel of its owned-and-operated stations. (Concurrently, JUCE TV was moved to the DT5 feed previously occupied by TBN Salsa, which the ministry pulled from its broadcast stations in May 2019, when a standard definition feed of the main TBN signal began being offered as a placeholder feed.)
In late February 2021, Olympusat, the main provider of TBN's networks to cable providers in the United States (including Verizon FiOS and Xfinity), discontinued carriage of the network, thus affecting carriage of Smile to those systems.
Closure
On December 17, 2024, it was announced that Smile would cease broadcasting on January 12, 2025. As part of the end of Smile, TBN promoted Yippee TV, a separate streaming service for which TBN serves as a partner, but not its owner, to its viewers looking for similar faith-based children's content. The network shut down over-the-air throughout the day on January 12, with all operations ending at 2:59 a.m. ET/11:59 p.m. PT the same evening.
"SOAC Mission Statement". Smile of a Child TV. Trinity Broadcasting Network. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
