BBC Four & CBBC to close

[XIII]

I thought expression of political opinion was banned?

There is a major elephant in the room.  If you're a kid, the Internet is just as much the wild west as it was in the 90's.  Are parents really going to happy letting their children go on the Internet to watch CBBC when they could accidentally stumble across porn?

You do know parents can change the settings on the internet to prevent kids seeing adult material...

[Keith]

I thought expression of political opinion was banned?

There is a major elephant in the room.  If you're a kid, the Internet is just as much the wild west as it was in the 90's.  Are parents really going to happy letting their children go on the Internet to watch CBBC when they could accidentally stumble across porn?

I think your point is a bit clumsy. The existence of CBBC doesn’t mean its potential viewers will never otherwise go online. 

Likewise, I don’t know the stats myself but I’d be interested to see numbers of people “going online” (I assume by this you mean via a computer or web browser) vs using a smart tv app or streaming device to watch CBBC.

Thinking back to the 90s up to the millennium when I was growing up and watching CBBC there's some noticeable differences to today (at least compared to my childhood).
- I didn't have a mobile phone until my mid/late teens, and it certainly wasn't a smart phone.
- Until just after the millennium we only had dial-up internet (Freeserve), and I think our first broadband was only 1 Mbps.
- Whilst I had TV in my bedroom it only had the freeview channels, and whilst it wasn't an internet connnected smart TV it did have Ceefax & Teletext.
- 'Catch-up TV' consisted on whatever I'd managed to record onto VHS, with the help of VideoPlus+ codes.

Point I'm making it back when I was in the CBBC target audience age range my options for watching children's programming was fairly limited. I essentially had only what was on linear TV, along with a few bits I had on video. These days many children have smartphones which have 4G/5G/wifi internet access on, as well internet enabled games consoles and/or TVs (not to mention internet speeds being considerably faster). The result being they have far more ways of being able to watch content these days, other than just linear TV.

[XIII]

Not to mention tablets as well. The Amazon Fire 7 is currently 50 quid but occasionally it can be as low as 30 quid.

[tellyblues]

Even the idea of getting kids onto iPlayer is pointless since they know about shows already, or if they don't, perhaps it's because they aren't on BBC1?

Will the fewer, bigger, better thinking apply to CBBC? Unlikely, since there is nothing in its remit about the minimum amount of new content, which has allowed the BBC to run it down.

[GraemeT]

Would everyone be happy if there was online live stream - a curated playlist if you will - called cbbc on the iplayer?

I think the scheduling is the key part for me of kids tv. My kids are CBeebies age, but the idea of certain programmes at different points of the day DO signpost what part of the day the kids are in.

The concept of ‘PLAY IT AGAIN’ can’t happen when it’s a liner stream - which is important for consumption.

And the curation of more educational shows throughout the schedule is important - some shows they (or I!) may not have chosen to watch should you have to browse and search...

[telebox2001]

I thought expression of political opinion was banned?

There is a major elephant in the room.  If you're a kid, the Internet is just as much the wild west as it was in the 90's.  Are parents really going to happy letting their children go on the Internet to watch CBBC when they could accidentally stumble across porn?

You do know parents can change the settings on the internet to prevent kids seeing adult material...

Domestic-level blocking systems aren't that great.  Go on a public hotspot and fire up some grot and it'll block it but in my experience stopping smut getting through on a domestic connection is not an easy thing to do.  Even I wouldn't know where to start on my setup.

[Steve in Pudsey]

Point I'm making it back when I was in the CBBC target audience age range my options for watching children's programming was fairly limited.  I essentially had only what was on linear TV, along with a few bits I had on video.  These days many children have smartphones which have 4G/5G/wifi internet access on, as well internet enabled games consoles and/or TVs (not to mention internet speeds being considerably faster).  The result being they have far more ways of being able to watch content these days, other than just linear TV.

I'm not sure whether this is an argument for closing CBBC as a linear channel (the target audience is already comfortable with consuming content online - which is very close to the justification used to close BBC Three and later reversed) or against it (the BBC's kids programming is gold standard stuff that needs to stay linear to be distinctive amongst the sea of other content that's available.)

For me the key argument for it staying linear is the public service broadcasting remit. With a linear schedule you get the Trojan Horse effect of somebody tuning in for Maid Marian and catching Newsround as well. (Others more familiar with the current schedule can provide a modern example I'm sure). The 8pm BBC One news summary was introduced based on this very concept. 

I mean was The Lowdown really appointment to view TV for many kids or did we watch it because it came on before Neighbours and there was nothing good on the other side? I can't see the more educational content being viable if it's just available on demand, there needs to be something to spark that demand, or people stumbling across it being on before/after something they did want to watch.

[Markymark]

You do know parents can change the settings on the internet to prevent kids seeing adult material...

Domestic-level blocking systems aren't that great.  Go on a public hotspot and fire up some grot and it'll block it but in my experience stopping smut getting through on a domestic connection is not an easy thing to do.  Even I wouldn't know where to start on my setup.

OpenDNS used to be a thing back in the 00s ?

https://www.opendns.com/

[Spencer]

Domestic-level blocking systems aren't that great.  Go on a public hotspot and fire up some grot and it'll block it but in my experience stopping smut getting through on a domestic connection is not an easy thing to do.  Even I wouldn't know where to start on my setup.

The phrase ‘fire up some grot’ has just caused me to spray a mouthful of coffee all over my poor dog.

[Moz]

I think the biggest thing that put me off watching BBC Three when it was a digital only channel was that it didn’t have a schedule. It was just a library of programmes that you could watch when you wanted.

Even if a channel is only available online, I still think there is a benefit of having a curated schedule each night. You are more likely to discover new programmes if they proceed or follow something you’ve chosen to watch.

It also fits in better with the other channels as lots of people would still look at the TV Guide on iPlayer to see what’s on across the channels. BBC Three not having a schedule to compare put me off watching.

So I hope when BBC Four goes online only they consider building a schedule each night.

[GraemeT]

I think the biggest thing that put me off watching BBC Three when it was a digital only channel was that it didn’t have a schedule. It was just a library of programmes that you could watch when you wanted.

Even if a channel is only available online, I still think there is a benefit of having a curated schedule each night. You are more likely to discover new programmes if they proceed or follow something you’ve chosen to watch.

It also fits in better with the other channels as lots of people would still look at the TV Guide on iPlayer to see what’s on across the channels. BBC Three not having a schedule to compare put me off watching.

So I hope when BBC Four goes online only they consider building a schedule each night.

Couldn’t agree more. Same with cbbc

[all new Phil]

It does surprise me we haven’t seen more pop-up or online-only channels on iPlayer like we’ve seen on Sounds. I think the BBC would do pretty well following the Pluto / Freevee model given the breadth of content they have for I would guess a pretty low cost.

[Brekkie]

Agree - they did the FA Cup Channel for a while but it seemed to be less of a thing this season. They might be doing something for Glastonbury too.

Sometimes too a random episode of something is better than having to choose one or watch from the beginning.

[frank]

Would it be terribly hard to have an iPlayer version of the likes of Radio 1 Relax for BBC Four/CBBC?

[Brekkie]

Isn't that the plan anyhow?