BBC Four & CBBC to close

[W. Knight]

I tell you what let’s go even further back and Just dump everything on one BBC TV channel shall we. We will go back to an hour at 4 o clock for kids programs then certain posters might be happy then.  

Merging CBBC and CBeebies is a big no. Do you really expect to go back to the days of In the night garden followed by Blue Peter it don’t work. Even before they split in 2002 they were had split links for the pre school shows.  Same with merging Three and Four together a 1993 repeat of top of the pops followed be live in the flesh simply wouldn’t work.

Erm all the links were presented in the same style before the split in 2002, like for example these clips.

Quoting the Guardian article on CBBC and CBeebies' launch:

One crucial change is that, for the first time, BBC children's programmers have the freedom to target two distinct age groups (instead of lumping them together) and tailor the services appropriately.

Mr [Nigel] Pickard was recruited from the commercial sector two years ago when only one digital service was proposed: he successfully argued the television needs of a four-year-old were quite different to those of a 12-year-old.

Although I can't watch either channel from where I am, I agree with this approach. Stuck with one major English channel, I often found my early teenage self not being able to choose what to watch, as the 'children's TV' timeslot are often preschool programming on learning alphabets, than cartoons and teenage sitcoms. Like what others have repeatedly said, kids at different age have different needs, even if they're represented by the same faces.

"But they can choose what they want to watch online, it's much more convenient" - but I'd argue children's TV (strand or channel) is curated more carefully than, say, Youtube or TikTok algorithms. We've heard about terrible consequences led by online challenges, or NSFW content on a supposedly kids-friendly platform. With uncontrollable schedules, it's much easier for kids to be led astray by random content they consumed, especially in forms like autoplay.

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Moving on to other aspects in the proposal, I'm not surprised with BBC4 closing, as their focus has shifted from the initial inspiring elements to whatever the BBC archive has. I think it can actually reposition the remaining channels: BBC1 as the place to be for fresh general entertainment, BBC2 is where you'd catch up your old-but-gold classics, and BBC3 is for the teens.

Some raise the necessity for BBC Scotland. I'm not too familiar with British politics, but to me it represents the viewers there better, when it has a separate identity. One thing I might change instead is BBC Alba: Can the two channels be broadcasted under the BBC Scotland banner? I mean, S4C used to do English/Welsh broadcasting, and RTE1 is a mix of English and Irish, maybe BBC Scotland can use the two languages concurrently as well?