Kids’ TV is dying but it is evolving – and could create a new golden age

Published

1 year ago

September 24, 2023

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CITV – the channel that gave us Fraggle Rock, Danger Mouse and Rainbow – has left our terrestrial screens. CBBC – home of Blue Peter and Newsround – plans to follow.

Meanwhile real-term investment in children’s TV by public service broadcasters has dropped by 30% in the last 10 years.

And while Sky has bucked the trend by launching an ad free kids channel, overall, the future of kids TV is looking bleak.

But figures show young people are still watching TV – albeit in a different way. Recent BARB viewing data shows that while the average amount of broadcast TV minutes of children’s TV channels watched by four-year-olds per week has declined by 62% since 2019, viewing has risen by 30% in the same period, demonstrating the “streaming first” trend in children’s viewing habits.

So, if kids are ditching linear viewing in favour of streaming, some might say that public service broadcasters moving their content online makes sense. Others would rightly argue that not all children have access to the internet.

And then there’s the question of what kids are actually watching online. It’s an “explosion” of choice the longest-serving female presenter of Blue Peter, Konnie Huq, doesn’t think it’s necessarily a good thing.

Huq tells Sky News: “Kids will always go for the biggest, fastest dopamine hit… We live in a world of instant gratification culture and actually delayed gratification is much better for happiness and mental wellbeing in the long term.

“And kids, obviously they’re not old enough to always make the right judgement calls.”

Huq – who is a mother-of-two herself and now works as a children’s author and screenwriter – recognises the needs for government legislation to hold streaming companies to account for the content they’re putting out. But she also recognises the limitations of people trying to control a seemingly infinite web.

She says: “It’s hard for laws, legislation, parents, schools, and the control culture to keep up with the changes that are going on.

“So, it’s important to make sure that you know what your kid is seeing, because on YouTube, for instance, your child could be watching one thing, but then different suggestions pop up unselected, unbeknownst to you. So, a few programmes hop away could be something that you might not be comfy with your child watching.”

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The Online Safety Bill – a new set of laws to protect children and adults online – is due to come into law later this year.

And at the Royal Television Society Convention earlier this week, the Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer announced new plans to bring unregulated online channels under Ofcom content rules on traditional TV to ensure children and vulnerable viewers are protected from inappropriate or harmful material.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport told Sky News: “The shows we watch as children shape the way we see the world, staying with us forever.

“From Thomas The Tank Engine to Shaun The Sheep and Horrible Histories, the UK is home to some of the world’s best children’s shows. Over 845 kids programmes have benefitted from the government’s generous animation and children’s tax reliefs, increased in this year’s budget, leading to more than a billion pounds of investment.

“The upcoming Media Bill will require mainstream on-demand streaming services to follow a new video-on-demand code protecting children from harmful or inappropriate content and we’re consulting on bringing unregulated online TV channels under Ofcom’s rules to deliver consistent protections.”

However, with investment in kids TV at its lowest level since 2012 (Ofcom’s Media Nations Report found that real-terms investment in children’s TV by public service broadcasters fell from £114m in 2013, to £80m last year) many would argue that investment just isn’t enough.

Spending on original kid’s content in the UK has been slashed following the 2006 ban on advertising junk food to children.

And the Young Audiences Content Fund – a £44m fund designed to help support children’s programming on channels including ITV and Channel 5 – was scrapped by the government last year.

Former CBeebies series producer Jon Hancock, who is now managing director of kids and family production company Three Arrows Media, calls the ditching of the fund “a difficult pill to swallow”, particularly because it was such “a monumental success”.

Set up by the government, and administered by the BFI, the fund was created to help stimulate more commissioning of UK-specific content in public service broadcasters outside of the BBC (which is funded by the licence fee).

The BAFTA-winning producer says the fund “helped the likes of Channel Five commission some fantastic award-winning content and to have that scrapped as it was 18 months ago was a devastating blow to the children’s industry”.

Huq too also says the loss of original, sometimes boundary pushing content, is a blow to British children’s viewing.

“Kids programming has often been ahead of the curve, before grown up programming has even caught up with it. And you know, that comes to so much diversity, when you’re looking at stuff like gay rights, things you wouldn’t necessarily assume kids TV even touched with a barge pole or had a hand in, kids TV was always at the forefront.”

As for BBC‘s plans to stop terrestrial broadcasting of its children’s channel CBBC – home to shows including Blue Peter and Newsround – in the future, Huq feels the broadcaster could be missing a trick.

“There’s less and less of these shared viewing experiences, which is why I think some of these Pixar films do so well these days, in that teatime viewing isn’t really a thing and everyone seems to just be watching their own thing on their own device. There is no family viewing as such.”

The BBC told Sky News: “We have said we won’t close any of our children’s channels before 2025 at the earliest, and we will maintain them for as long as they deliver value, and our audience needs them.

“Children’s content is a priority for the BBC and we are the major investor of original, culturally relevant British content for ages 0-12 – more than any other streamer or broadcaster in the UK and we still have the two leading linear channels for them.”

So, while Bob The Builder and Horrid Henry have been forcibly evicted from their CITV terrestrial home, and plonked into ITVX Kids, Blue Peter at least has a temporary reprieve, and won’t weighing anchor quite yet.

Time will tell if the evolution of kids TV to online will crush its creative spark or whether the challenge of standing out in a crowded marketplace will inspire innovative new shows and approaches – a new golden age of children’s TV.

But as kids become the curators of their own content – the good, bad and ugly – might we do well to consider whether we’re handing over too much responsibility to our youngest – and arguably most important – viewers to consume whatever, wherever and whenever they want?

If you’re a parent or caregiver – or just love children’s TV – you can find Sky’s ad-free, 24-hour Sky Kids channel on Sky Q, Stream, Glass, and NOW.

Entertainment

Pamela Anderson on reclaiming her life and career, and her new film The Last Showgirl

Published

20 hours ago

February 22, 2025

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Pamela Anderson on reclaiming her life and career, and her new film The Last Showgirl

Pamela Anderson is one of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood.

Ever since she was spotted on the huge jumbotron screen at a baseball game aged 21, her physical traits have been the overriding subject the world has focused on.

Now 57, the actress and model is claiming back her life, her story and forging a new path in her career.

“I feel so free,” she tells Sky News during a conversation in a London hotel about her latest film The Last Showgirl.

“I write a lot of emotional journals and there’s a lot that you can get out. You can go to therapy, or you can talk to your best friend, but there’s nothing like an art project to express yourself and heal parts of yourself.”

The Last Showgirl follows a seasoned entertainer who has to plan for her future when her Las Vegas show abruptly ends after a 30-year run.

The role almost slipped from her fingers when her old agent passed on the script.

“I have a new agent now,” she says with a smile.

It was her son Brandon who served as a catalyst in her career resurgence after stumbling upon the screenplay and showing it to his mother.

“My sons are so protective of me and their goal is just to say: ‘Mom, we just want you to be able to know that you focused on us as kids and we want you to have the opportunity to shine and to reach your potential as an actress’.”

She adds: “I do have a lot to give, so now I just feel so free. I couldn’t have done anything like this when I had kids because my focus was with them. Now that they’re grown and they’re doing well and they’re thriving, that gives me the opportunity to be able to play in this universe.”

The Canadian-American has been the victim of many harsh headlines over the years with her most challenging moments played out in front of the world.

One of the toughest moments, when her sex tape with her ex-husband Tommy Lee was leaked, ended up being made into its own TV series starring Oscar nominee Sebastian Stan and English actress Lily James.

Anderson had no input in the show and repeatedly called for it to be scrapped.

Anderson says that despite the adversity and misogyny she has faced being in the public eye, she feels ready to take on the spotlight again. This time on her terms.

“It was hard for me decades ago, and now I can look at it as a learning experience. And it was a different time. I think that looking at it through my kids’ eyes was interesting.

“Talking to my adult children about having a mom who was, you know, objectified in some way and how that felt [for them] and how that shaped them and their experience growing up, being teased in school.”

Her sons, Brandon and Dylan, are now both in their late 20s.

Drawing similarities to her character Shelly in The Last Showgirl, Anderson says the film serves as a reflection of the sacrifices, external expectations and realities connected to being a woman and a mother.

“We’re doing the best we can with the tools that we have and what we’ve seen growing up. And there’s no perfect way to be a parent, there really isn’t – and especially in this industry.

“When I did Playboy, when I was in Baywatch, I wasn’t thinking about how it was affecting my kids. I was thinking about just keeping the lights on and living this exciting life and getting through it myself.

“But, you know, it affects everybody around you – your parents, your friends, your kids – and so to kind of look at it from that way [in The Last Showgirl] and to have empathy for the character of Shelly dealing with that… I had some experience to draw from.”

The film also stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Brenda Song and Kiernan Shipka as her close friends and co-workers in a fading corner of the Las Vegas strip.

Anderson adds of the film: “I think this can resonate with any working mom. We all carry this guilt and shame and wish we would have done this or that. And we have to be happy, too.”

The Last Showgirl is out in UK cinemas from Friday 28 February.

Entertainment

Salman Rushdie attack: Hadi Matar found guilty of attempted murder after stabbing author multiple times on stage

Published

1 day ago

February 21, 2025

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Salman Rushdie attack: Hadi Matar found guilty of attempted murder after stabbing author multiple times on stage

A man has been found guilty of attempted murder for attacking author Sir Salman Rushdie.

The 77-year-old British-American writer was stabbed multiple times as he was preparing to give a speech in New York in 2022.

He was blinded in his right eye in the incident, suffered a severely damaged hand, and spent months recovering.

Following a trial in Chautauqua County Court, a jury convicted 27-year-old Hadi Matar of attempting to murder Sir Salman, after less than two hours of deliberations.

He was also found guilty of assault for wounding Henry Reese, who was on stage with Sir Salman at the time.

Matar gave no obvious reaction to the verdict, and quietly muttered “free Palestine” as he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

The court heard Matar ran on to the stage at the Chautauqua Institution where the author was about to speak on 12 August 2022, and stabbed him in front of an audience.

The Indian-born writer, who spent most of the 1990s in hiding in the UK after receiving death threats over his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, was stabbed about 15 times.

Sir Salman was attacked in the head, neck, torso, and left hand. He also suffered damage to his liver and intestines.

‘I was dying’

During the trial, Sir Salman described the moment Matar attacked him and told the court: “I only saw him at the last minute.

“I was aware of someone wearing black clothes, or dark clothes and a black face mask. I was very struck by his eyes, which were dark and seemed very ferocious to me.

“I thought he was hitting me with his fist but I saw a large quantity of blood pouring onto my clothes.

“He was hitting me repeatedly. Hitting and slashing.”

The writer then said he felt “a sense of great pain and shock,” and added: “It occurred to me that I was dying. That was my predominant thought.”

The court also heard that Mr Reese, the co-founder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, had suffered a gash to his forehead in the attack.

‘Attack was unprovoked’

During closing arguments earlier on Friday, District Attorney Jason Schmidt showed the jury a video of the attack and said: “I want you to look at the unprovoked nature of this attack.

“I want you to look at the targeted nature of the attack. There were a lot of people around that day but there was only one person who was targeted.”

Matar’s defence team argued prosecutors did not prove he intended to kill the writer, with Andrew Brautigan telling the jury: “You will agree something bad happened to Mr Rushdie, but you don’t know what Mr Matar’s conscious objective was.”

Mr Schmidt said that while it was not possible to read Matar’s mind, “it’s foreseeable that if you’re going to stab someone 10 or 15 times about the face and neck, it’s going to result in a fatality”.

The judge set a sentencing date of 23 April, when Matar could be jailed for up to 25 years.

Matar faces a separate, federal indictment from prosecutors in the US attorney’s office in western New York alleging that he attempted to murder Sir Salman as an act of terrorism.

He is also accused of providing material support to the armed group Hezbollah in Lebanon, which the US has designated as a terrorist organisation.

Entertainment

Neighbours cancelled again by Amazon – just two years after 40-year-old soap was revived

Published

2 days ago

February 21, 2025

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Neighbours cancelled again by Amazon - just two years after 40-year-old soap was revived

Neighbours has been axed for a second time, just two years after Amazon threw the Australian soap a lifeline.

A statement on the programme’s social media accounts confirmed the final episode of the 40-year series would air in December 2025.

The show follows the lives of the residents of Erinsborough, a fictional suburb of Melbourne, with famous former alumni including Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and Margot Robbie.

Executive producer Jason Herbison said: “Audiences all around the world have loved and embraced Neighbours for four decades and we are very proud of the huge success over the last two years including often appearing as one of the Top 10 titles in the UK and the show’s first ever Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Daytime Series in 2024.

“As this chapter closes, we appreciate and thank Amazon MGM Studios for all that they have done for Neighbours – bringing this iconic and much-loved series to new audiences globally.

“We value how much the fans love Neighbours and we believe there are more stories of the residents of Ramsay Street to tell in the future.”

It is the second time the show has been cancelled, after it was first axed by Channel 5 in the UK after it failed to secure new funding.

But a few months after what was meant to be its final episode, the series was revived by streaming giant Amazon Freeve and Freemantle.

The show is available online in the UK and on Channel 10 in Australia.

Channel 10 said on X: “They’ve been our neighbours for almost 40 years, we’re so sad to be saying goodbye. We’d like to thank everyone who has contributed to this remarkable Australian story over the years.”