BBC to revamp kids' channels

BBC to revamp kids' channels

The BBC is planning a widescale relaunch of its children's channels CBBC and CBeebies, including a £1m-an-hour drama.

The digital station will be given a new on-air look and will target different ages, after the BBC realised it was failing to serve the four- and five-year-old age range.

CBeebies will now be aimed at all children up to six-year-olds while CBBC will focus on six- to 12-year-olds.

Presenter links between programmes will be cut and replaced with hi-tech links, with the money saved to be put back into programming.

The two digital channels, which have been one of the BBC's big success stories, will have fewer programmes but of higher quality.

Shows coming up on the channels include The Roman Mysteries, which cost £1m an hour to make. The drama - which features stars such as Simon Callow - was made possible through a £600,000 investment from venture capitalists.

Dubbed "Rome for kids but with no sex" the glossy drama follows four children's lives in imperial Rome.

Other shows coming up include MI High - a spy drama built as a "Spooks for kids" and made by the Spooks producer Kudos.

Rag Doll Productions is also making what the CBeebies creative director, Michael Carrington, called "the new Teletubbies". With the title In the Night Garden, the show will air early next year.

In addition, CBeebies has developed a programme out of one of its internet characters, called Tommy Zoom, while CBBC has made a novel show called The Wrong Trainers.

The Wrong Trainers features children talking about drugs and poverty, set to animation.

Mr Carrington said the changes to the channels were a result of research the BBC had undertaken that showed the channel was not serving four- to five-year-olds adequately.

CBeebies is also making a special version of Jackanory for younger children, called Jackanory Junior.

The CBBC creative director, Anne Gilchrist, said her research showed the channel had too many magazine programmes.

"Our conclusion was we need to do fewer programmes, better. The sorts of things we want to do more of are in the areas of comedy and specialist factual - areas I don't think we've done before," she said.

"We think our audiences deserve the kind of high-quality programming you will see in The Roman Mysteries."

Ms Gilchrist said it was not certain when the relaunch of the two digital channels would take place saying.

"We are assembling various bits of the puzzle at the moment, but we're not sure quite when it will [happen]."

It's strange how things seem to have come full circle almost. I bet in a few years time some bright spark will come up with the idea of having presenters in-between programmes.

At which point marketing will declare this innovative and tell us how cutting down on the number of programmes and having presenters fill in the gaps saves huge amounts of money.

It's strange how things seem to have come full circle almost. I bet in a few years time some bright spark will come up with the idea of having presenters in-between programmes.

At which point marketing will declare this innovative and tell us how cutting down on the number of programmes and having presenters fill in the gaps saves huge amounts of money.

. . . of course, the 'facts' in the Guardian story might not be quite right.

CBBC is certainly updating the look of its presentation continuity . That's not to say that it won't remain presenter-led, but will employ some new technology to create an ambitious new presentation environment.

Not CBeebies.

....an ambitious new presentation environment.

. . . of course, the 'facts' in the Guardian story might not be quite right.

CBBC is certainly updating the look of its presentation continuity . That's not to say that it won't remain presenter-led, but will employ some new technology to create an ambitious new presentation environment.

Not CBeebies.