Moving With The Times; British Children's Channels Invest £20m A Year In Kids' Programming

From C21Media:

Moving with the times

Moving the BBC’s children's programmes off its terrestrial channels and on to digital networks will not harm programme production but low budgets could, writes Jesse Whittock.

Earlier this month, the BBC’s governing body the BBC Trust approved plans to shift children’s programming off flagship channels BBC1 and BBC2. The predictable reaction from the UK press was to wail about tradition being ignored and iconic kids’ shows like Blue Peter being sidelined.

But there’s much more to this story than history – in fact, the defining moments of BBC Children’s future are yet to come.

Quite how moving such content to diginets CBBC and CBeebies equates to the end of family viewing, as former Blue Peter presenter Valerie Singleton told The Daily Telegraph last week, is a mystery to me. Equally baffling is why parent’s group ParentsOutloud claimed the BBC is “ghettoising” kids’ content. It’s not – the BBC is simply changing with the times.

Taking children’s content away from the Beeb’s flagship channels is justified because pretty much the entire UK now has digital terrestrial television, or will have it by the end of 2012. And if the YouView platform ever materialises, it will be even easier to watch kids’ programmes.

In addition, these days British children commonly have access to iPhones and tablets. They don’t care about Blue Peter’s 54-year run on BBC1, whether you do or not. That's the reality.

The next 18 months will be pivotal for both CBeebies and CBBC, where children’s content will ultimately be aired exclusively. It’s a period that could potentially define both channels, and this should be welcomed. The early effects of the BBC’s Delivering Quality First cost-saving initiative, which will chop 20% of the pubcaster’s budget by 2017, are starting to be felt and in the future the key factor will be the quality of the programmes the pair commissions and produces in-house.

CBBC – which is still to reveal whether current head of acquisitions and drama development Sarah Muller will replace outgoing controller Damian Kavanagh as expected – gets the lion’s share of the available cash to create expensive drama and documentary series and strands. CBeebies, which is the better performing of the two channels, has to make do with far less.

The BBC’s annual report for 2010/11 showed CBBC had a content budget of £78.3m (US$122.8m) last year and CBeebies £28.5m. Adding distribution and infrastructure spending, these figures increased to £99.3m and £38.7m, respectively.

That’s all much less than the Beeb’s adult-skewing networks, of course, but still nothing to be sniffed at, especially when you consider the Commercial Broadcasters' Association recently said its members (Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network) together invest just £20m a year in kids’ programming. (Although £20m is nothing to be sniffed at, either.)

The idea that CBBC vacuums up most of the available money has riled some commentators, such as UK media writer Maggie Brown in this article for The Guardian. “It is barely discussed outside of the cloistered world of children’s TV production, but kids’ channel CBeebies, wildly popular with parents of young children, is poorly funded to the point of shabby mistreatment,” she wrote.

CBeebies’ controller Kay Benbow is too diplomatic to get into a debate about “shabby” treatment or financial squabbles within the BBC, but she did have this to say in a speech to industry figures this month: “The good news is that both BBC children’s channels are performing extremely well. CBeebies often reaches 50% of its target audience on TV, and over the past year has reached between 850,000 and one million unique users a week and has one of the highest audience appreciations across the BBC, of 88%.”

Speaking just before it emerged that kids’ content was switching to the digital channels, she added: “We need to make sure that we have a prominent place wherever BBC content is offered. It’s crucial that children’s TV remains a priority for the BBC so that CBeebies and CBBC can continue to offer quality UK content to UK children.”

And while Benbow would surely love to swap CBeebies’ budget for CBBC's, her channel is managing to create some high-quality programmes regardless, largely thanks to independent producers and the global coproduction market. Recent examples include boys-skewing action toon Tree Fu Tom, created with FremantleMedia Enterprises, which has been a ratings success; and 26-part dress-up series Let’s Play, which Zodiak Media-owned prodco The Foundation is producing for a late-2012 transmission.

Sure, this will often mean the Beeb’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, doesn’t get its hands on potentially lucrative distribution and other ancillary rights (or at least has to share them), but the priority is to create series that are long-lasting and either educational or encourge physical activity. Tree Fu Tom and Let’s Play do so and CBeebies is rightly making a lot of noise about them.

A critical period for BBC kids’ content is coming but resisting change and complaining about the end of traditions is not the way forward.

Jesse Whittock
29-05-2012
©C21Media

TAGS: Budgets

GENRES: Children's

SHOWS: Blue Peter, Let's Play, Tree Fu Tom

PEOPLE: Damian Kavanagh, Kay Benbow, Maggie Brown, Sarah Muller, Valerie Singleton

COMPANIES: BBC, BBC1, BBC2, Cartoon Network, CBBC, CBeebies, COBA, Disney, FremantleMedia Enterprises, Nickelodeon, The Foundation, Zodiak Media

SECTIONS: C21 Kids

COUNTRIES: UK