BBC digital proposals

With the release of the new proposals for BBC THREE, I was set thinking again what I would do if I was in charge. My only main reservation with the digital plan is having two children's channels, one of which is intended to broadcast to children who are supposed to be at school! This means at some points in the day three out of the five main BBC channels on air will be showing children's programmes.

My plan merges the two children's channels into one, on BBC THREE's daytime bandwidth, thereby allowing BBC FOUR to transmit during the day with more adult-orientated programming, with extra BBC World News bulletins, as I know there are a lot of BBC World fans round here! BBC THREE and BBC FOUR's evening schedules would run mainly as has been proposed by the BBC. The children's channel would be known simply as CBBC.

CBBC

6.00am Pre-school programmes, Teletubbies, Tweenies etc etc etc

4.00pm-7.00 Programmes for older children, with an extended Newsround at 6.45


BBC THREE

7.00pm-4.00am as proposed


BBC FOUR

6.00am BBC Four Breakfast - offering an alternative to Breakfast on BBC1/News 24 with BBC World News at 6.00, 7.00, 8.00 and Business Breakfast at 6.30, 7.30

8.30 BBC Learning Zone - an extension of the BBC2 service with repeats of selected Open University and schools programmes that may be of interest to a more general audience, plus classic documentaries from the archives such as The Ascent of Man

12.00 BBC World News

12.30pm BBC Learning Zone - repeat of 8.30-12.00

4.00 Accessible science/history documentaries repeated from BBC1/2 such as Local Heroes, The Planets etc

7.00 BBC World News

7.30-1.00am Arts/documentaries/discussion/music/drama/films, as proposed.

Have to say, that sounds good!

Much better - I don't understand the need for the two childrens channels either and also - much as I appreciate arts and so-called 'high-brow' programming (I'm an old fashioned teenager, I like to watch programmes that make me think occasionally, I don't need to be overtaken by steath-learning like the original BBC Knowledge) - I think it's ridiculous that the BBC has had to water down its proposals for a truly innovative and radical public service youth channel just to get it approved by the DCMS.

The government ought to realise that young people are a very opinionated and technologically savvy part of the population - annoy us at your peril!

Couldnt the BBC 4 Breakfast programme be the 2 hours of The World Today not shown on BBC N24, with one hour at the end, with UK Discussion about world events.

Sounds great Robert, I'd like to see BBC WORLD content on BBC FOUR so lets hope in happens siilar to your schedule, obviously it won't but why not e mail your suggestions to the BBC!

Umm, well the information I found (sorry, can't remember where) stated that a large portion of CBBC Channel's daytime output during term time would be schools programmes... that's what I heard, anyway...

Yes, I remember hearing that as well, although it was only something like 10% of total output.