‘Reading Rainbow’ Coming to Web and Connected Devices After Closing Kickstarter at Over $5.4 million
LeVar Burton’s Kickstarter campaign to bring Reading Rainbow to more platforms and to thousands of classrooms for free closed today with funding of more than $5.4 million — not including the additional $1 million that Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane plans to donate. Having hit its ambitious $5 million stretch goal, Burton’s company will now be bringing Reading Rainbow to Android as well as the Xbox, PlayStation, Apple TV, and Roku. Originally, Burton had announced plans only to bring Reading Rainbow to the Web. Reading Rainbow’s campaign estimates that the Web portion should be ready by next May.
Some of the additional funding is also going toward giving schools free access to Reading Rainbow’s website and apps. Burton plans to provide free access for a year to at least 7,500 classrooms using the first $5 million, and his company will put the additional $400,000 entirely toward free access for classrooms as well. Altogether, Burton’s campaign is one of the most successful ever to go through Kickstarter. Though it didn’t set a new monetary record — still falling far behind the Pebble smartwatch — it did set a new record for backers, ending with a total of more than 100,000.
