I.

Introduction

Children's Television, historical development of broadcasting aimed at younger viewers. Children’s television in the United Kingdom owes much to the public service ideals of the BBC, where John Reith, as the first director-general, made a commitment to provide programmes for children on the new “wireless”: “It is not to be like school. They’ve been at school all day. You will need to devise something to entertain and inform children and, if possible, to delight them. Children’s programmes must become a wonderment.” The daily radio programme Children’s Hour became a popular tradition in many households at teatime as it provided a carefully planned mixture of information and entertainment. When television became available throughout the United Kingdom after World War II it was a natural progression to build on this legacy. The new visual medium attracted even the youngest children to string puppets, such as Muffin the Mule and Andy Pandy, and many other programmes became firm favourites.

Despite the criticism that television might distract children from more worthy activities such as homework, Sunday school, or sports, in 1950 the BBC founded a television department of seven producers dedicated to serving the whole population under the age of 13. Until then, children’s programmes in the United Kingdom had been made as offshoots of adult departments, and in some countries the only provision continued to be the occasional cartoon, puppet series, or advertising magazine. The BBC, however, believed that, after school, children needed a mixed diet of different kinds of stimulating entertainment, including storytelling, drama, natural history, current affairs, the arts, music, religion, history, comedy, and audience participation. During school hours, educational programmes were directed at specific age groups, with notes for follow-up work by teachers. As in radio, two separate departments covered these needs—Schools broadcasting and Children’s Programmes.