Comcast acquired a 51% majority stake in NBC Universal from General Electric in January 2011, and would assume full ownership of the company in 2013. As a result, Comcast's interest in Sprout was turned over to the company. Apax Partners sold HIT Entertainment to Mattel on October 24, 2011; the sale did not include HIT's stake in Sprout, which was retained by Apax. On July 7, 2012, Sprout began to produce educational programming blocks for NBC and Telemundo, branded as "NBC Kids" and "MiTelemundo" respectively. The blocks both replaced Qubo (a previous joint venture between NBCUniversal, Ion Media, Corus Entertainment, Scholastic, and Classic Media), which had been airing on NBC and Telemundo since September 2006.
