The Evolution Of Children's TV Over The Years - By: James Woolley

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Children's TV, and indeed the viewing habits of children, are changing all the time. Even though I'm still fairly young myself, it's still fairly obvious how much children's TV has changed since I was a child, and I think it could continue changing in the future. Back in the 1980s and early 90s we only had four main TV channels in our house, and children's programs were only really shown on BBC1 and ITV as far as I can remember. They broadcast these programs early in the morning and for a couple of hours in the afternoon. They came on just as most of us were getting home from school. Nowadays, however, kids have far greater choice of what to watch. They can no longer watch kids shows on ITV any more as they've decided to fill their schedules with detective shows instead, but they still have a wider choice of programs to choose from. This is because there are now dedicated children's channels both on terrestrial television via Freeview and Freesat, and on the satellite channels, where there are several of these channels. They can watch these programs at any time they want as well because rather than being confined to just a few hours a day, like we were, these programs are very often broadcast throughout the day and into the evenings as well. The TV programs themselves have evolved a lot as well. Whereas we used to be happy with very cheap and badly produced shows, nowadays modern technology means programs are more professionally produced. Thankfully though the content of the shows and the underlying messages are still pretty much the same. Whether production companies continue to spend as much money on children's TV shows in the future remains to be seen because not only is the weak economy making things difficult, but there is also another underlying problem. Children of all ages now have several forms of entertainment to choose from such as games consoles and the internet, as well as iPods and mobile phones. So there is a danger that the quality of children's TV will suffer because TV companies may feel that it's no longer a good idea to spend money on making exciting new programs, when a lot of kids don't even bother watching many of these shows anyway. A lot of kids would much rather chat to their friends on Myspace or Facebook or watch videos on YouTube than watch some of the lame shows that are broadcast on TV. So it will be interesting to see how kids TV evolves in the future. There's no doubt that it still has an important role to play in educating and entertaining very young children in their early years, but I don't think older children are that interested in children's TV any more, particularly with so many other forms of entertainment to choose from.