CBBC Channel

Why would you want your big shows in the summer holidays, when a lot of kids are away for 1-2 weeks and so miss an episode. Especially in the days before iPlayer.

I take it the summer expedition has gone the same way as the Blue Peter appeal, not that they could do one this year.

I don’t see why they can’t throw together a couple of compilation episodes for the six week filming break. Lindsey’s been doing the show for nearly 7 years now, there must be at least 3 episodes worth of material from that.

Why not repeat classic episodes, or well remembered recent ones for the current viewers:

Maybe do Barneys last one, Radzi’s last one, the 60th birthday one, Lindsey’s first episode, Richie’s first episode, the 5000th one.

Because you're a public service broadcaster and realise providing new and engaging content to the not unsubstantial number of children who do not go away during the school holidays, and for who the school holidays are a particularly challenging time of year, is more important than chasing the ratings.

Well, indeed - and even if kids are away for a week or two, they're not away for the entire holidays. Why would they have ever bothered doing additional programmes for the summer holidays otherwise? As it turned out, it was seemingly an unsuccessful experiment as they didn't do it again, but it was worth trying.



They've already been using a lot of clips to fill out the programme over the last few months, as they've been unable to make a lot of new films - and certainly not the action films that are a major part of the programme - so there is probably a limit in how much you can make use of the archives.



The expedition ended over ten years ago now, it was always a bit tenuous when the show was on all year round anyway. But there are plenty of other regular traditions on the show now, like the Book Awards, the launch of the sports and music badges and so on, which in their own way serve the same role as things like the appeal and expedition in generating a lot of programme material over the course of the year.

CBBC have asked viewers to vote for their favourite episode of The Next Step, with ten choices made by the cast. The top 5 are on CBBC on 18th July, but, unlike when they did it a few years ago and just put a generic ‘The Next Step: Top Episode Vote’ in the schedules, they’ve actually revealed the result already:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl9r/2020/07/18

It’s a good idea though, they could try it for a few other CBBC shows.

I think it's because of CBBC's scheduling team. They have specific slots for animated programming.
The first one is at 7am- around 7:45am
The second is around 3pm till 4pm
And the last one is around 6pm - 6:30pm

It's a pattern in the schedule that has been happening for more than a decade.

First two blocks are graveyard slots in normal times - when kids are getting ready for school, and when kids are still on their way home. Any parents who insist kids do homework before watching TV would cause the kids to miss that block too. 6pm is the best timeslot of the three.

When I was about ten I used to watch CBBC in the mornings during my breakfast - it was just after the channel launched. My school didn’t finish until 3.30 in primary, so the 3-4 slot was out of the question.

The 6pm slot was good, but they now only show one 22 minute cartoon after they aired live action content for 3 months. The 22 minute cartoon is one of two, either The Deep or Race To The Edge, both of which are now finished I believe. The other 30 minutes is Operation Ouch! Then there might be a short programme like Blue Peter Bites, or the 7pm show starting early, or the 5.35pm show finishing late.

I agree but CBBC don't really do anything with the 6pm slot apart from using it for new episodes of 'Danger Mouse' and constant repeats of 'The Deep'.

I took a look at their new summer schedule and it looks like 'Dragons' will be coming back to the 6pm slot.

I have only just noticed this afternoon how simular 'Sketchy Comedy' is to 'Ooglies'. But no matter what, Ooglies will always be the superior.

I am also confused as to why the took 'Scream Street' and 'Strange Hill High' off the air at the start of this year, they were such good shows!

Strange Hill High was never extremely popular in the first place - they had started making the second series before the first one even began. It did well to stay on repeats for nearly 6 years with only 25 regular episodes. It never really fit into CBBC for me, it felt a bit too homegrown for a CBBC animation (and that says something about the rest of their animations).

Scream Street did well in it's first airing, airing weekly rather than daily which shows it's quality. I do wonder why that never returned for a second series. When they removed the 6pm animation hour temporarily last Spring, Scream Street lost it's resident 6.45pm slot, and any other slots that the show went in never seemed to stick. Of course, the 6pm animation slot returned, but halved in duration, meaning Scream Street never returned, with it, and Zig and Zag, which also went off air at the end of last year, to be replaced by a repeat run of Operation Ouch!