Purple Queen

Purple Queen is an adult-oriented block that airs on a free-to-air children's network Red Princess. It airs on Monday through Thursday at 10 PM to 6 AM and weekends from 11 PM to 5 AM and every Saturday from 10 PM to 2 AM on ION and Fridays from 8 PM to 12 AM on ION Plus. It launched on January 7, 2019 as a response to Qubo Night Owl closing down. It is aimed at adults from 18-34. It's very similar to other adult-oriented programming blocks in the minds of Fox Family's DarkFox and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. The block is also a syndication service on Friday nights.

Origins
Prior to the launch of the block, Red Princess aired cartoons from WildBrain and Warner Bros. All of the shows (except for Madeline) seem to have a preteen/teenage demographic. Following the launch of the Boys and Girls night out weekend blocks (which the shows moved to except for Randy Rabbit and Inspector Gadget), the network launched a nighttime adult-oriented block. The "queen" part was chosen to signify its adult demographic. Compared to Red Princesses' demographic of children and teens. The ION block was formed after E.W. Scripps' merger with ION Media Networks. On March 1, 2021, the block also added a 90-minute Newsy block every Monday to Thursday. Nowadays, it is used as the Nighttime identity of Red Princess as well as ION Television.

On May 29, 2021, Purple Queen announced that they would become a syndication service on their Friday night lineup similar to MyNetworkTV, The CW, and ION Television. This means that the block's Friday night lineup would be entirely operated by the Station owner as opposed to Red Princess itself. During the process, NBCUniversal announced that they would air their NightHouse animated programming on the block via stations owned by NBC, Sinclair, and Nextar. Disney also made an announcement to air DarkFox on their ABC stations.

Programming
Purple Queen airs predominantly Comedy and mystery programming as well as anime during the weekend. Though, unlike DarkFox and Adult Swim, many of the block's content has to be toned down because of the FCC. Fridays are preserved for syndicated programming by the Station and typically contain 1 hour of e/i programming.

Programming Blocks

 * The Vortex - A revival of The programming block on The CW of the same name. Now operated by 9 Story Media, it airs anime and action programming every Saturday night from 12 AM to 5 AM. It is meant to compete with Adult Swim's Toonami and MyNetworkTV's Anizami. This makes Saturday the only day with the block having every slot animated except for the 11 PM slot.
 * What The Toons? - A Sunday night counterpart of The Vortexx. It airs mainly animated comedy programming from the Fox library as well as some original programming. It airs every Sunday from 11:30 PM to 3 AM the following Monday.
 * Newsy on Purple Queen - A daily news programming block that airs on the block every weekday from 5 to 6 AM on weekdays, 4:30 to 5 AM on Friday, 11 to 11:30 PM (11:30 to 12 AM starting on January 1, 2021) on Saturday, and from 4 to 5 AM on Sundays.
 * Ion Plus - A syndication service of the block that airs every Friday from 11 PM (when Red Princess signs off) until 4:30 AM.