Fred Rogers’ company tweaks name

The Fred Rogers Company has rebranded itself as Fred Rogers Productions, an effort to better reflect the company’s ongoing mission of making multiple children’stelevision programs.

“The fact that it’s plural helps,” said Paul Siefken, president and CEO of Fred Rogers Productions. “Our company has been around for a long time and for a long time, it was responsible for one production under the supervision of Fred Rogers. In the last five years we’ve actually introduced four new programs.

“We feel it’s important to acknowledge we have multiple programs we’re producing,” he continued, “and in that way also introduce that to families who maybe are not familiar with the work we’re doing now, to allow people to be curious about what other productions this company is responsible for.”

FRP shows include PBS’s “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” “Odd Squad,” “Peg + Cat” and the Curious World web series “Through the Woods.”

Aside from the new name and a new logo — the Fred Rogers Productions logo uses an image of Daniel Tiger from the company’s popular preschool program in place of the silhouette of Fred Rogers used as the logo of The Fred Rogers Company — no other changes are expected.

Mr. Siefken said the name change also will help distinguish the nonprofit company from the Fred Rogers Center in Latrobe.

“It says what we do: We’re a production company that makes children’s entertainment,” he said. “And in the Pittsburgh region there [have been] two organizations dedicated to Fred Rogers: The Fred Rogers Center and the Fred Rogers Company, and this allows for people to immediately recognize us as the production arm of those two legacy organizations.”

It’s not the first name change for what is now Fred Rogers Productions. Founded in 1971 by Mr. Rogers as Family Communications, Inc., the company was previously rechristened The Fred Rogers Company in 2010, seven years after the death of its founder.