When did Children’s BBC become the umbrella name for all the BBC’s output for younger viewers?
It’s not as easy a question as you might think.
The Children’s BBC strand was introduced in September 1985 to replace normal presentation but was confined to weekday afternoons.
Play School, See Saw and Saturday morning programmes were still linked by the normal announcer with the standard ident and graphics.
In fact, standard links returned to the afternoon for a brief period in the summer of 1986 – Children’s BBC itself moved to weekday mornings for the holidays.
The first significant extension of the special branding came with the start of daytime TV in October 1986.
Children’s BBC began a morning slot around Play School and, soon afterwards, the BBC micro ident started to be used around See Saw programmes too.
Other strands gradually replaced standard continuity – But First This during the summer school holidays, Now on Two on Sunday mornings.
Yet until the early 90s, there were still occasions when the globe was used between children’s programmes.
The last major example we’ve found is from September 1991.
Roger Maude – by then one of the longest-serving and, by certain measures, old-fashioned of announcers – linked the Saturday morning line-up with the standard BBC One graphics.
The fact the announcer was still needed on some occasions probably reflected economics or wider editorial issues.
Was the money around to hire enough presenters to cover all children’s output?
On certain occasions was there even the need? The lack of an in-vision presenter before See Saw or Sunday’s repeat of Play School was hardly conspicuous.
What is more surprising is the inconsistent branding?
Sometimes the Children’s BBC graphics were used on Saturday mornings by the regular announcer – notably on the morning in February 1991 when the new channel idents were introduced.
Yet the new globe made its debut before the flagship children’s programme Going Live.
And, as I said, the standard idents popped up all through Saturday’s children’s programmes on other occasions.
There were also exceptional occasions when normal presentation was used around afternoon children’s programmes into the noughties. Occasionally editions of Blue Peter at Christmas and New Year were shown on days when there were no other CBBC programmes.
All of this is surprising in retrospect.
The broom cupboard was popular with young viewers while it was soon forgotten that the name Children’s BBC was suspiciously similar to the name of its ITV rival launched two-and-a-half years earlier.
The BBC – both then and now – has to think carefully about resourcing. It is understandable that the need for in-vision children’s links did not always justify the cost.
But you might have imagined someone senior in Pres might have ruled on how other children’s slots should have been branded as early as 1987.
If the regular announcer was being used, either they should have kept to the standard idents or used the children’s animation.
Surely it wasn’t simply left to the people in duty or those preparing a particular day’s transmission schedule to decide?
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