SW
One reason why they showed a thirty minute Sesame Street was because they took it off completely at the beginning of 1997 to make way for Light Lunch and other stuff, and got so many complaints they brought it back but only had half an hour in the schedules (at 12 noon, it had been at 12.30) so chopped it in half. There's lots about the Beeb not buying Sesame Street in Anna Home's Inside The Box Of Delights and it does point out that Monica Sims, the head of children's programmes at the time, said the main reason was that they had British shows doing the same thing, and also that they were prepared to buy individual sequences from it to show as standalone items but the CTW said they had to show the whole thing or not at all. Although they did later sell it in that way to other countries.
Of course at the same time as ITV started daytime telly, so did the Beeb, although schools programmes were still on in the afternoon so the schedules weren't quite as flexible. But I've got Radio Times from 1974 when there are programmes from after the schools programmes finish around 2.30 up to the kids shows, in April 1974 there was something called The Afternoon Programme which ran for ninety minutes twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays, with Alan Towers introducing features including keep fit and cookery with Delia Smith. But at the end of 1974 they dropped them all apart from Pebble Mill because they ran out of money.
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.
One reason why they showed a thirty minute Sesame Street was because they took it off completely at the beginning of 1997 to make way for Light Lunch and other stuff, and got so many complaints they brought it back but only had half an hour in the schedules (at 12 noon, it had been at 12.30) so chopped it in half. There's lots about the Beeb not buying Sesame Street in Anna Home's Inside The Box Of Delights and it does point out that Monica Sims, the head of children's programmes at the time, said the main reason was that they had British shows doing the same thing, and also that they were prepared to buy individual sequences from it to show as standalone items but the CTW said they had to show the whole thing or not at all. Although they did later sell it in that way to other countries.
Of course at the same time as ITV started daytime telly, so did the Beeb, although schools programmes were still on in the afternoon so the schedules weren't quite as flexible. But I've got Radio Times from 1974 when there are programmes from after the schools programmes finish around 2.30 up to the kids shows, in April 1974 there was something called The Afternoon Programme which ran for ninety minutes twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays, with Alan Towers introducing features including keep fit and cookery with Delia Smith. But at the end of 1974 they dropped them all apart from Pebble Mill because they ran out of money.