I'm with Rusty...

[Starkers]

Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies has called for national lottery money to be given to children's programmes.

In a speech to Bafta members, Davies said: "They put money into rubbish films, why can't they put money into children's television?"
Davies makes the Sarah Jane Adventures for CBBC but says budget cuts nearly cancelled his show three times.
Last month the BBC's governing body called for action to stop the decline in ratings for children's programmes.
The BBC Trust said that scheduling changes had contributed to the fall in viewing figures.
Davies echoed this in his speech by explaining that, after BBC One replaced Neighbours with the Weakest Link his Doctor Who spin-off, the Sarah Jane Adventures was pushed back in the schedule. It then lost 300,000 viewers.
He called for work to begin on changing the BBC guidelines to enable lottery money to fund children's television. "It needs to be a special case" he argued.

'They're our children, they're the most vital and precious resource you could ever find. It is more important than industry, it is more important than the economy, it is more important than food and education."


Davies worked in children's television at the start of his career. He produced Why Don't You?, wrote for ChuckleVision and picked up a Bafta for his writing on Children's Ward.

'Truly shocking'
In his speech he called the state of children's television "truly frightening", pointing out that it had disappeared from ITV and was the first thing to be squeezed by budget cuts on other outlets.
The third series of the Sarah Jane Adventures was hit by budget constraints. Davies said: "We had to look and say, do we want to make a version of Sarah Jane that's a travesty?
"It was truly shocking to have a successful show having to face cuts which are that severe" he continued. The writer pointed out that different BBC departments had pulled together to rustle up the money which the programme needed to continue but that, in general, "children's (TV) is sinking lower and lower down the agenda".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7952655.stm

I can't believe a show as succesful as SJA nearly gets cancelled for lack of funding! If we're not careful British kids will end up growing up to just American shows!

At the risk of sounding like a Daily Mail headline, I wonder how many episodes of SJA you could film for what the Beeb pay Ross a year

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Didn't a government report recently call for the government to set up a fund of at least £22m a year for children's television production, besides the Beebs children's commitment?

 

[StCoop]

I can't believe a show as succesful as SJA nearly gets cancelled for lack of funding!

The problem is the majority of the series audience is adult Doctor Who fans. 20% of DW's audience is under-16; yet less than half of them watch TSJA. Children over a certain age just have no interest in watching children's TV.

BBC Radio4 recently axed its one and only childrens show after it was revealed that the average age of its audience was 52 and some weeks it got 0 listeners in its target age group!

 

[Cky]

JUST 22million? That's horribly low in my opinion.

 

[captcalhoun]

it is disgusting. but then, much of the state of modern TV is.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

JUST 22million? That's horribly low in my opinion.

I think it was £22m aimed at propping up Channel 4/5, ITV producing children's shows, not to totally fund it...
I'll see if I can find the story on it.

I can't find it now, all I can find is a report saying a new PSB entity with Channel 4 at it's heart should be responsible for it, with new funding from the government if viable.

 

[wamdue]

the 3rd series of SJA had budget cuts? gees you could tell in S2 the show cleary had money issues, RTDs is right to say "We had to look and say, do we want to make a version of Sarah Jane that's a travesty?"

 

[matthunter]

RTD is seriously hacked off with the Beeb, in many cases rightly so. His anger at the whole incident over the Queen leading to certain people resigning who had nothing to do with it other that being convenient choices to fall on their swords, plus the whole administrative nightmare that followed (department heads claiming not to have been consulted on stuff they'd been in on since day one, just because those meetings weren't minuted and they wanted to cover their arses, thus pushing back production while old ground was covered anew) - comes through clearly in his book... I'm not surprised he has issues with the budget too.

The Beeb has been reduced to a bunch of government arse-kissers since the Gilligan and Queen scandals, unable to fight for the level of support they truly need and instead playing "where can we save money to look good?" and wrecking decent programming in the process.

 

[jamestyler]

SJA can go. As long as I still get Nina and the Neurons, life is good.

I'm surprised though. I'm not a huge follower of SJA and barely take interest in kids shows (as long as I can watch Nina and Ezri can dance to Upsy Daisy all is well) the amount that have contacted me for work in 2007/8 was encouraging. Though all of it was 'too' kiddies stuff. In an age where we complain kids are growing up fast, the TV aimed at them is getting more patronising.

I'm not saying we should unleash Oldboy onto 3 year olds, but all the kids I've seen exposed to kids channels have seen the shows as silly and lame rather than fun.