You know, I grew up during the 1990's with the likes of Byker Grove, Grange Hill, Ghost Hunter, Pig Heart Boy, the Demon Headmaster and Aquilla on the air. Of course, long before that you had Children's Ward and Press Gang, too. Lots of diverse programming there, I think you'll agree. Nowadays, children's television is dying a slow death - as every year the amount of hours devoted to it drops further, and the budget shrinks faster than a guy's manhood during a cold winter's day.
Russell T Davies isn't happy about the changes, and he makes that clear during an interview with Licensing.biz (reported here via DigitalSpy). He cries, "Children's TV has all but disappeared from ITV, literally vanished from the schedules, and it's not coming back any time soon. We need to embrace what the BBC has. Something massive needs to be done - children's programming needs more money and it needs to urgently. Nothing is more important than our children. It is not nostalgic to remember something that was brilliant. It is remembering something that you loved."
Let's hope more shows like The Sarah Jane Adventures manage to make it on the air and carry the tradition forward.
***
Oh, and better late than never - the Comic Relief mini-episode of the SJA was watched by 8.3 million viewers. More people watched Ronnie Corbett the Slitheen than ITV1's Emmerdale. Hooray!
Russell T Davies isn't happy about the changes, and he makes that clear during an interview with Licensing.biz (reported here via DigitalSpy). He cries, "Children's TV has all but disappeared from ITV, literally vanished from the schedules, and it's not coming back any time soon. We need to embrace what the BBC has. Something massive needs to be done - children's programming needs more money and it needs to urgently. Nothing is more important than our children. It is not nostalgic to remember something that was brilliant. It is remembering something that you loved."
Let's hope more shows like The Sarah Jane Adventures manage to make it on the air and carry the tradition forward.
***
Oh, and better late than never - the Comic Relief mini-episode of the SJA was watched by 8.3 million viewers. More people watched Ronnie Corbett the Slitheen than ITV1's Emmerdale. Hooray!
2 comments:
Don't get me started on this. Good Childrens tv is practically dead. Live-Action is all but dead. Over here in the Netherlands they're dubbing those terrible Disney live-action shows. In my day we watched Dragonball Z in english and often the subtitles would fail. Say what you want but it helped us learn English. All the cartoons these days are about quick cheap laughs and stand-alone episodes. Whatever happened to plot and character development. Oh that's right viewers are morons especially kids. OK It's not all bad but it's not the same as it was 5-10 years ago. Especially on the live-action front.
"and the budget shrinks faster than a guy's manhood during a cold winter's day."
Great analogy :P
I'm more shocked by the news here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7952655.stm
They were going to pull the plug on SJA! *gasp* SJA is one of the last remaining survivors of dying breed of good childrens tv. There were so many original live action homegrown shows on CBBC in the 90s, the original Queens Nose, Aquila and indeed the Demmon Headmaster being key examples. SJA has survived thus far, but who knows what budget cuts will mean for the show in the future?
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