[Brekkie]

Yes, I think at most if and when CBBC closes should there be a block on BBC2 it would likely be on weekend mornings. Beyond that you might get the odd higher quality show, like the Famous Five, appear on BBC1 on weekend/Bank Holiday afternoons.

Indeed one thing that arguably went long before the afternoon blocks went was the Sunday afternoon children's drama, usually in the schedule in it's own right rather than under the CBBC banner. I don't think they were ever present but I remember The Borrowers on that slot in the early 90s and I think a Just William remake a few years later.


I stumbled across a report from 2003 yesterday which compared children's content from 1996 through to 2003, during which content had generally gone up across the traditional channels and the vast majority of new content was aimed at older children rather than pre-school. There seemed to be a threshold for children's drama too with at least 10% of content ticking that box.

[Chad Blake]

CBBC had an "Original British Drama" initiative back in the mid-2010s. There were trails made for it that aired all over BBC One and BBC Two in addition to the CBBC channel.

Speaking of the BBC Two block, I wonder how CBBC presentation will continue when CBBC closes as a linear channel. I could see one of these things happening, from most likely to least likely:

1. CBBC presentation is axed entirely
2. The remaining CBBC presenters end up moving to CBeebies presentation
3. Presentation is added to the existing CBBC morning slot on BBC Two (06:50 to 09:10 as of this post)

[tellyblues]

Like anything to do with broadcasting, it's all about numbers and technicalities. It's likely the BBC would have been able to commission more for older kids because it still counted as children's content and they could repeat more stuff for pre-schoolers because the thought would be that they wouldn't notice as much. It could also be that there were bought-in shows that couldn't be classed as new but fair enough anyway as they were new to kids in the UK.

CBBC moving online next year will make it difficult to know what's new and what's not and that will allow the BBC to scale back even more.

Regarding the posts about the current BBC1 and ITV1 afternoon schedules being successful, of course they are. The kids blocks won't be back because there would be outrage from viewers about their shows being taken away from them even though the shows wouldn't be axed completely, and making it seem as if during the times when the kids shows were on that adults had nothing to do for two hours.

[JLav25]

Yes, I think at most if and when CBBC closes should there be a block on BBC2 it would likely be on weekend mornings. Beyond that you might get the odd higher quality show, like the Famous Five, appear on BBC1 on weekend/Bank Holiday afternoons.

Indeed one thing that arguably went long before the afternoon blocks went was the Sunday afternoon children's drama, usually in the schedule in it's own right rather than under the CBBC banner. I don't think they were ever present but I remember The Borrowers on that slot in the early 90s and I think a Just William remake a few years later.


I stumbled across a report from 2003 yesterday which compared children's content from 1996 through to 2003, during which content had generally gone up across the traditional channels and the vast majority of new content was aimed at older children rather than pre-school. There seemed to be a threshold for children's drama too with at least 10% of content ticking that box.

There was an adaptation of “Johnny and the Bomb”, a Terry Pratchett novel in that slot c. 2006, but it didn’t seem to rate well there. Only reason I remember it was we’d read the book in Yr 8 English the previous term and our teacher was annoyed we’d missed it being on live. We ended up watching the taped (Christ that makes me sound old!) at the end of the year as wind down lessons

[ACTV]

Pretty sure Dodger ran in that Sunday slot a few years back (not sure if it still does), and The Snow Spider was shown on BBC One Wales whilst it was on CBBC everywhere else. The likes of The Famous Five would certainly fit there, even things like Malory Towers.

The family dramas I think fit better on BBC One as CBBC these days seems to be edging towards a younger audience with more animation and in particular, anime - such as Pokémon and some Dragon Ball series. The shift to younger viewers has even gotten so far that the likes of Go Jetters and Supertato have also popped up on CBBC, despite being CBeebies programmes. Although that being said, Blue Peter has made multiple appearances on CBeebies for quite a few years now.

Horrible Histories was re-edited for a BBC One broadcast many years ago, with Stephen Fry inserted in as host.

[Neil Jones]

There was an adaptation of “Johnny and the Bomb”, a Terry Pratchett novel in that slot c. 2006, but it didn’t seem to rate well there. Only reason I remember it was we’d read the book in Yr 8 English the previous term and our teacher was annoyed we’d missed it being on live. We ended up watching the taped (Christ that makes me sound old!) at the end of the year as wind down lessons

That's a trilogy apparently in the books, the Bomb being the last one. There were two others in the series.

The TV adaption only lasted three episodes and according to Genome went out at either 5:35pm or 4:10pm on a Sunday afternoon. It was then relegated to a few repeat showings on CBBC and hasn't been seen since.

Apparently ITV made a TV adaptation of the second book in 1995.

With regards to Just William, they've made a few of those over the years, but I think Brekkie's referring to the the 1994 adapation of Just William which IIRC went out also on a Sunday.

Otherwise a newer version of Just William It went out at lunchtime Christmas 2010 and had Daniel Roche in it as the lead character (Roche being best known at the time for appearing in Outnumbered)

[Tola]

So did Fox Kids in the early days and so did TCC before they spun off Tiny Living and Trouble (who both also had IVC)- in fact it was a major part of TCC at one point.

I think Cartoon Network were the only kids channel of the era that didn't have IVC- though they did have periods of live continuity with real time animation (which IIRC was done by the same people who did Tricky (and The Chart Show) on ITV- and of course the Tricky animations were re-used on Pop for years, though not live.

For Fox Kids, they had a live IVC show called "Xpress", which I'd imagine would've been in the same veins of Studio Disney/Disney Channel Live etc; only one clip of it is online:
youtu.be 

There was also Auntie Susa and Sasslefres as well which appeared (I think?) for a VERY brief period of time around 1999/2000, though that would've been targeted at younger viewers

[Stooky Bill]

Yes, I think at most if and when CBBC closes should there be a block on BBC2 it would likely be on weekend mornings. Beyond that you might get the odd higher quality show, like the Famous Five, appear on BBC1 on weekend/Bank Holiday afternoons.

If the CBBC thing does happen then I think it's pretty certain there'll still be some CBBC shows on broadcast television. Putting them online takes childrens programmes away from the poorest families and those without decent enough connectivity.

Which is presumably the same reason why some CITV content remained on ITV2 after it's channel closed

[Brekkie]

The most recent stats say 94% of the UK now has access to the Internet at home (compared to 93% who have a TV licence) and 99.7% of the UK have access to speeds of 10mbps or more - so I don't think the removal from linear is the issue it once was in terms of access to content.

I assume there is more detail on content released by the BBC but I'm guessing in terms of original UK content CBBC only has Blue Peter, Saturday Mash Up and perhaps one stripped series a week so giving new original content a linear slot wouldn't take up a huge amount of hours per week.q

[BillyH]

There was an adaptation of “Johnny and the Bomb”, a Terry Pratchett novel in that slot c. 2006, but it didn’t seem to rate well there. Only reason I remember it was we’d read the book in Yr 8 English the previous term and our teacher was annoyed we’d missed it being on live. We ended up watching the taped (Christ that makes me sound old!) at the end of the year as wind down lessons

Yep, here’s a bit of continuity out of it (and some later on that afternoon) from one of my old tapes.

www.youtube.com