TV Home Forum

40 years since itv extended hours: 16th Oct 1972

Started with rainbow a british Revolution in better Kids TV (October 2012)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
MK
Mr Kite
It seems that elitism and anti-Americanism were among the major reasons for the hostility.


It was most likely because it was supposed to be an educational show which was brought to us by the letter 'zee' and the words 'color', 'jello' and 'potato chips'. UK TV companies can hardly be described as anti-American. Indeed, both the BBC and ITV have relied on US TV shows to compliment their schedules for decades. It's far from true the other way around.


Perhaps, but having grown up in a small country, I think it's perfectly natural that children -- even young children -- are exposed to programming from other countries. It makes them realize just how diverse the world is. In the article cited, many people were faulting Sesame Street primarily for being American. I consider that a weak argument.

If the few linguistic differences were really such a big deal, the BBC could have launched a UK version of Sesame Street . Broadcasters in many other European countries did just that (France's TF1 with 1, rue Sésame , for instance).

There was also a fair deal of elitism on display. The article mentions that children and their parents rather liked Sesame Street , and that most of the opposition came from educators, some of whom considered it "vulgar" (a world popular among cultural elitists of that era). Surely the decision of whether the show was appropriate should have been made by parents and their children?


But being American is a big issue when it comes to education, so long as there's even an accute regional variation in the languages. We're not as small a country as people seem to believe and whilst the BBC could've created a UK version of Sesame Street, it may as well have just done something original. If the UK has a lack of anything, it's non-English programmes, educational or otherwise. This anti-American thing about Sesame Street just doesn't wash. Why didn't the US show the Hoobs or the Tweenies? Perhaps committees of parents and children should've decided whether or not they were shown in the states too.

It should be noted that Sesame Street did make it to the UK. I remember it on Channel Four. However, it was clearly not billed as an educational programme.
WW
WW Update
It seems that elitism and anti-Americanism were among the major reasons for the hostility.


It was most likely because it was supposed to be an educational show which was brought to us by the letter 'zee' and the words 'color', 'jello' and 'potato chips'. UK TV companies can hardly be described as anti-American. Indeed, both the BBC and ITV have relied on US TV shows to compliment their schedules for decades. It's far from true the other way around.


Perhaps, but having grown up in a small country, I think it's perfectly natural that children -- even young children -- are exposed to programming from other countries. It makes them realize just how diverse the world is. In the article cited, many people were faulting Sesame Street primarily for being American. I consider that a weak argument.

If the few linguistic differences were really such a big deal, the BBC could have launched a UK version of Sesame Street . Broadcasters in many other European countries did just that (France's TF1 with 1, rue Sésame , for instance).

There was also a fair deal of elitism on display. The article mentions that children and their parents rather liked Sesame Street , and that most of the opposition came from educators, some of whom considered it "vulgar" (a world popular among cultural elitists of that era). Surely the decision of whether the show was appropriate should have been made by parents and their children?


But being American is a big issue when it comes to education, so long as there's even an accute regional variation in the languages. We're not as small a country as people seem to believe and whilst the BBC could've created a UK version of Sesame Street, it may as well have just done something original. If the UK has a lack of anything, it's non-English programmes, educational or otherwise. This anti-American thing about Sesame Street just doesn't wash. Why didn't the US show the Hoobs or the Tweenies? Perhaps committees of parents and children should've decided whether or not they were shown in the states too.

It should be noted that Sesame Street did make it to the UK. I remember it on Channel Four. However, it was clearly not billed as an educational programme.


Sesame Street was a huge success around the world. It was even shown in a large number of non-English-speaking countries in its original version, and it didn't do anyone any harm. In fact, it arguably broadened the horizons of many children at a time when the world was far from globalized. Obviously, some British broadcasters were in a rather paternalistic mood at the time, extremely anxious about about a well-produced American (gasp!) show that children seemed to like. The paternalism is what really irks me in this case.

This paragraph from the article cited above is a nice example of these attitudes:

Quote:
Frank Blackwell, the director of the primary extension programmes for the National Counsel for Educational Technology, carried out the research reported in ITA's report. Both children and their parents were questioned about their interaction with Sesame Street, and sociologists watched children's reactions while watching it. They found that 98—99% of young viewers enjoyed it, and were surprised to discover that most of the negative reactions were from educators. Most parents had positive reactions.


And here's an example of their insecurity specifically about the fact that Sesame Street was American:

Quote:
The investigators recognised the show's success in the U.S., but agreed with the BBC that both the ITC and the BBC had over twenty years of experience producing high-quality educational programmes for children, unlike in the U.S., where the production of Sesame Street was the first time a "proper pre-school television programme" was made.


Note that this argument is neither about American words (the horror!) nor about any specific quality concerns. Rather, it implies that the show's American nature itself was a problem.

BTW, instead of comparing the UK television market with the huge US television market, it makes more sense to compare the UK market with other European markets. There, children have always been exposed to foreign programming -- from the UK, the US, Eastern Europe (which had a wonderful tradition of quality animation and puppetry), and so on. Again, I would argue that this did European children absolutely no harm.
MA
Markymark
Sesame Street deserves a slot in the UK again. Am I right in thinking it was available without charge so long as it aired with no adverts?


No, it was simply that the IBA did not permit commercial breaks during educational programmes such as Sesame St.
WP
WillPS
Sesame Street deserves a slot in the UK again. Am I right in thinking it was available without charge so long as it aired with no adverts?


No, it was simply that the IBA did not permit commercial breaks during educational programmes such as Sesame St.


Ahhah - was that something the ITA/Ofcom never changed? I'm sure it continued to go without adverts right up to when it finished on Channel 4.
:-(
A former member
BBC had 20 years head start over the US, about making kids shows this there were not about to give in to some up start USA kids show. But it seems some people have overlooked the most important fact, BBC rejected because.... Well read below.......

Quote:
The BBC disliked the series from the very beginning, and refused to air a British version, claiming that there were already children's television programmes that accomplished the same goals as Sesame Street. Throughout 1970 and 1971, debates raged in the British media about broadcasting the show in the U.K. Joan Ganz Cooney, the creator of Sesame Street, expressed her hopes that a British version of the show could expose British children to "something more telling than the magic roundabout".[4] Monica Sims, head of children's programming at the BBC at the time, stated, "This sounds lik e indoctrination, and a dangerous extension of the use of television ".[5] A teacher in North London showed the series to over 400 educators and reported that the most negative feedback was that Sesame Street was "brash and vulgar but utterly lovable"


rejected because its delivery to information to kids......

with ITV stations there was a gap of 4 years before other started picking it up..
IT
itsrobert Founding member


Sesame Street was a huge success around the world. It was even shown in a large number of non-English-speaking countries in its original version, and it didn't do anyone any harm. In fact, it arguably broadened the horizons of many children at a time when the world was far from globalized. Obviously, some British broadcasters were in a rather paternalistic mood at the time, extremely anxious about about a well-produced American (gasp!) show that children seemed to like. The paternalism is what really irks me in this case.

This paragraph from the article cited above is a nice example of these attitudes:

Quote:
Frank Blackwell, the director of the primary extension programmes for the National Counsel for Educational Technology, carried out the research reported in ITA's report. Both children and their parents were questioned about their interaction with Sesame Street, and sociologists watched children's reactions while watching it. They found that 98—99% of young viewers enjoyed it, and were surprised to discover that most of the negative reactions were from educators. Most parents had positive reactions.


And here's an example of their insecurity specifically about the fact that Sesame Street was American:

Quote:
The investigators recognised the show's success in the U.S., but agreed with the BBC that both the ITC and the BBC had over twenty years of experience producing high-quality educational programmes for children, unlike in the U.S., where the production of Sesame Street was the first time a "proper pre-school television programme" was made.


Note that this argument is neither about American words (the horror!) nor about any specific quality concerns. Rather, it implies that the show's American nature itself was a problem.

BTW, instead of comparing the UK television market with the huge US television market, it makes more sense to compare the UK market with other European markets. There, children have always been exposed to foreign programming -- from the UK, the US, Eastern Europe (which had a wonderful tradition of quality animation and puppetry), and so on. Again, I would argue that this did European children absolutely no harm.


Is there really anything wrong with the UK wanting to stay true to its own cultural history, etiquette and language? You say that we were being elitist... fair enough, we probably were. But we're a proud nation and our constituent countries have been around a lot longer than the USA so why shouldn't we protect our own culture? In any other form of television I really wouldn't object to American imports, and as Mr Kite demonstrated, it's not that we're totally anti-American; we've imported hundreds of shows over the years (arguably many, many more than the other way round). But I think it's legitimate to be fairly cautious about exposing children to foreign programming, especially when it's in an altered form of English to our own.

You say that many children in other countries have broadened their horizons by learning English from Sesame Street and that may well be true. But then, they're probably content to speak and write American English, whereas we are not. We invented the language and we want to stay as true to our own version of it as possible. Subjecting very young children to "incorrect" spellings and pronunciation could be very damaging during later schooling, so if that meant not showing Sesame Street, I think that's a fair decision. If that's paternal and elitist, then so be it.
JO
Joe
When you say 'protect', 'preserve' and 'stay true to', do you really mean that you want it to stay the same, itsrobert?
MA
Markymark
Sesame Street deserves a slot in the UK again. Am I right in thinking it was available without charge so long as it aired with no adverts?


No, it was simply that the IBA did not permit commercial breaks during educational programmes such as Sesame St.


Ahhah - was that something the ITA/Ofcom never changed? I'm sure it continued to go without adverts right up to when it finished on Channel 4.


That's right, in fact I was told that C4 would often perform minor maintenance of their pres suite while S St was playing out, because it gave them a full hour with no transitions !
MA
Matt_1979
I was disappointed when Sesame Street was taken off Channel 4. I haven't read all the posts in this forum, so I was wondering why Channel 4 stopped showing Sesame Street - if this has been mentioned. I am sure the programme was still popular in the UK.

I was staying in the United States six weeks ago (my first ever break there) and I saw an episode of Sesame Street. It was nowhere near as good as the epsiodes from the mid 80s to early 90s that I remember. Big Bird, Snuffy, Oscar and Grover were nowhere to be seen, only Telly and Elmo were in the show, as well as a Muppet fairy called Abby who is a farily new addition. The programme just didn't have the feel of the old Sesame Street.
IT
itsrobert Founding member
Joe posted:
When you say 'protect', 'preserve' and 'stay true to', do you really mean that you want it to stay the same, itsrobert?


In some ways, yes. Naturally every culture evolves over time and this is even more apparent this century thanks to globalisation; but in terms of language, I do think it would be a shame to become Americanised. We ought to be proud that we speak our own version of English rather than using the American modifications.

Thus my argument about Sesame Street is that because the whole programme was built around teaching children words (and numbers), it was providing British children with erroneous information which probably came back to haunt them when they got to school age and started to be taught the British way of spelling. I've nothing against broader culture being influenced from outside - to a point - but in terms of linguistic education we should be more careful. That's not to say I don't think children should be exposed to other cultures; far from it. It's very important in this day and age to be familiar with other countries, but not at the expense of eventually losing our own version of English and customs.
BR
Brekkie
Of course, the introduction of afternoon programming on ITV in 1972, gave the smaller ITV companies an outlet for their productions to be aired through the 'About Britain' slot which I seem to recall was shown at 3.00pm on Tuesdays.

I'm guessing originally then like in the evenings afternoons were scheduled on a day by day basis, rather than shows being stripped across the week.
BR
Brekkie
I was disappointed when Sesame Street was taken off Channel 4. I haven't read all the posts in this forum, so I was wondering why Channel 4 stopped showing Sesame Street - if this has been mentioned. I am sure the programme was still popular in the UK.

I was staying in the United States six weeks ago (my first ever break there) and I saw an episode of Sesame Street. It was nowhere near as good as the epsiodes from the mid 80s to early 90s that I remember. Big Bird, Snuffy, Oscar and Grover were nowhere to be seen, only Telly and Elmo were in the show, as well as a Muppet fairy called Abby who is a farily new addition. The programme just didn't have the feel of the old Sesame Street.

Didn't they ultimately commission The Hoobs (from the same producers) as effectively a UK version of the show. They did air a 30 minute version of Sesame Street for a while before showing double episodes of The Hoobs instead.

Newer posts