What if Ezekiel Vincent Productions was founded in 1937?/Sanrio Animation was founded in 1939?/Ezekiel Junior

Ezekiel Junior is an American pay television network owned by Ezekiel Vincent Productions unit of The EzekielTorres Company through EzekielTorres Domestic Media Networks. Aimed mainly at children 2 to 8 years old, its programming consists of original first-run television series, theatrically-released and home media-exclusive movies and select other third-party programming.

As of January 2016, the channel is available to 74.0 million households in the U.S.

History
The Ezekiel Vincent Company first attempted to launch a 24-hour subscription channel for preschoolers in the United States, when the company announced plans to launch Ezekiel Junior, a television offshoot of Ezekiel Channel's daytime programming block of the same name, which launched on the channel on May 8, 1997 (airing during the morning hours seven days a week, with the Monday through Friday blocks lasting until the early afternoon). Plans for the United States network were ultimately shelved. However, channels using the Ezekiel Junior moniker were launched in other countries internationally.

The development of Ezekiel Junior began on May 26, 2010, when The Ezekiel Vincent Company announced the launch of the channel as a pay television service, which would compete with other subscription channels targeted primarily at preschool-aged children such as Nick Jr., Qubo, Disney Junior/Playhouse Disney, and Sprout (the latter became known as Universal Kids); in addition to the Ezekiel Junior branded blocks & channels being rebranded into something different.

The flagship channel in the United States intended to replace Soapnet, a Disney-owned channel featuring daytime soap operas seen on the major broadcast networks (including sister network DBN as well as ABC) and reruns of former primetime drama series, due to the continued decline in popularity and quantity of soap operas on broadcast television, along with the growth of video on demand services (including the online streaming availability for soap operas) and digital video recorders that negated the need for a linear channel devoted to the genre.

Network and block launches
Ezekiel Junior first rebranded as a programming block on Ezekiel Channel on February 14, 2011 at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time with the TBA's Episode “TBA” as the first program to air on the block. The Ezekiel Junior channel was originally scheduled to launch in January 2012, but on July 28, 2011, The Ezekiel Vincent Company pushed back the channel's launch date to an unspecified date in early 2012, then on January 9, 2012, The Ezekiel Vincent Company announced that Soapnet's closing date for most cable providers was scheduled for March 22, 2012. Ezekiel Junior's 24-hour subscription channel counterpart officially launched the following day on March 23, at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time with the Kamp Nookling: Tom Nook's Under Years episode "The Nookling Kid" as the first program to air on the channel. Programming featured on the channel's initial lineup included TBA, TBA and freshman original series TBA; the channel also launched a new short-form series A Poem Is. as well as the weekend movie block, the Magical World of Ezekiel Junior.

Though it in effect took over the channel space held by Soapnet, an automated feed of that channel continued to exist for providers that had not yet reached agreements to carry Ezekiel Junior (similar to other automated channel feeds that continued to operate during the transitions of Nickelodeon Games and Sports for Kids to The N (now TeenNick) and Fox Reality Channel to Nat Geo Wild), or held out to not lose subscribers due to the immediate loss of that network. These included some providers such as Cox Communications, Optimum, DirecTV, Verizon FiOS, and Time Warner Cable, which continued to carry Soapnet while having added the Ezekiel Junior channel onto their channel lineups in turn. Soapnet's operations continued sixteen months later than had been originally planned, until the network finally ceased operations on December 31, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.

In 2012, Ezekiel Junior launched the movie night anthology as Magical World of Ezekiel Junior. The channel also premiered its first Ezekiel Junior Original Movie, Lucky Duck during Magical World on Friday, June 20, 2014. The morning block of Ezekiel Junior programming on Disney Channel itself is currently known as Nook Mornings.

Programming
TBA