Smile (shortened from its former name of Smile of a Child) is an American Christian

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...

television network A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay television providers. Until the mid- ...

owned and operated by the

Trinity Broadcasting Network The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) is an international Christian-based broadcast television network and the world's largest religious television network. TBN was headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, until March 3, 2017, when it sold its ...

. The network is aimed at children between the ages 2 to 12, and offers 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 Janice Wendell Crouch () (née Bethany; March 14, 1938 – May 31, 2016) was an American religious broadcaster. Crouch and her husband, Paul, founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) in 1973, along with Jim Bakker. She, along with her ...

. Smile is also available on pay-TV providers as well as on some streaming services that offer TBN's six U.S. networks. The network is available in the U.S. on

AT&T U-Verse U-verse TV is a DirecTV brand of IPTV service. Launched on June 26, 2006, U-verse included broadband Internet (now AT&T Internet or AT&T Fiber), IP telephone (now AT&T Phone), and IPTV (U-verse TV) services in 48 states.Wave Broadband and throughout

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north ...

and

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

as a free-to-air channel on Galaxy 14 C-band,

Galaxy 19 Galaxy 19 is a communications satellite owned by Intelsat located at 97° West longitude, serving the North American market. Galaxy 19 replaced Galaxy 25 which is nearing the end of its design life and has been moved to 93.1°W longitude. It was ...

K_u band and available with Glorystar Christian Satellite. Internationally, ABS1 satellite to Asia, India and the Middle East, and

Agila 2 ABS-3, formerly ABS-5, was initially named Agila 2 after the Philippine eagle, before being acquired by ABS (formerly known as Asia Broadcast Satellite). Launched in 1997, the satellite provided telecommunications services for Mabuhay Satellite ...

both C-band and K_u band signal in some areas of Asia and the Philippines. The network is also livestreamed on both its own and TBN's website. In addition, parent network TBN runs a "Smile" block on Saturday mornings. Competing network KTV aired a 12 hour block of Smile programming from October 26, 2015, through June 30, 2017.

History

Early history, as Smile of a Child

Founded as Smile of a Child TV by TBN co-founder

, the network was developed and named after Smile of a Child, a children's outreach ministry founded by Jan and

Paul Crouch Paul Franklin Crouch /kraʊtʃ/ (March 30, 1934 – November 30, 2013) was an American television evangelist. Crouch and his wife, Jan, founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) in 1973; the company has been described as "the world’s l ...

in the 1990s to provide services and donations to needy children worldwide. The network launched on

December 24 Events Pre-1600 * 502 – Chinese emperor Xiao Yan names Xiao Tong his heir designate. * 640 – Pope John IV is elected, several months after his predecessor's death. * 759 – Tang dynasty poet Du Fu departs for Chengdu, whe ...

, 2005 at 3:00 a.m.

Eastern Time The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small por ...

, 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, 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 Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprise ...

logo is a visual representation of the initials of Jan Crouch's

maiden name When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("birth name" is also use ...

, JWB (Janice Wendell Bethany).

Multicasting consolidation with JUCE TV

On June 1, 2015, Smile was combined into a single subchannel with sister network

JUCE TV JUCE TV is a defunct youth-oriented Christian television network and is a current YouTube channel owned and operated by the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The channel is aimed at teenagers and young adults between the ages of 13 and 30 years, ...

(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 Community Educational Television, Inc. (CET) is a subsidiary of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) which owns six TBN-affiliated television stations in Texas and Florida, all on channels allocated for non-commercial educational broadcasting as ...

. The following week, the time share 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 – due to technical limitations with its stations' existing digital compression equipment – is a byproduct of the launch of

TBN Salsa TBN Salsa is an American Christian-based digital broadcast television network owned by the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The network offers a mix of religious and family-oriented programming aimed at English-speaking Hispanic Americans (serving a ...

, a digital subchannel network targeting

English-speaking Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the '' Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest langua ...

Latino 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 Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * 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. On

January 1 January 1 or 1 January is the first day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 364 days remaining until the end of the year (365 in leap years). This day is also known as New Year's Day since the day marks the beginning of the yea ...

, 2017, the network underwent a major rebranding, shortening its name to simply Smile; accordingly, it dropped the butterfly logo and graphics package that had been in use since 2005.

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 Standard-definition television (SDTV, SD, often shortened to standard definition) is a television system which uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. "Standard" refers to it being the prevailing sp ...

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 Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, doing business as Xfinity, is an American telecommunications company and division of Comcast Corporation used to market consumer cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the c ...

), discontinued carriage of the network, thus affecting carriage of Smile to those systems.

Programming

Awards and honors

2008:

Parents Television Council The Parents Television and Media Council (PTMC), formerly the Parents Television Council (PTC), is an American media advocacy group founded by conservative Christian activist L. Brent Bozell III in 1995, which advocates for what it considers ...

Entertainment Seal of Approval

References

External links

SmileSOAC & JUCE TV Channels Merged in TBN Australia
{{Programs Preschool education television networks Christian mass media companies Evangelical television networks Television programming blocks in the United States Religious television stations in the United States English-language television stations in the United States Television channels and stations established in 2005 Trinity Broadcasting Network Children's television networks in the United States