CBBC - Children's BBC, The BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation

CBBC

The CBBC Channel is a BBC television service aimed at 6 to 12 year olds. It complements the CBBC programming that continues to air on BBC One and BBC Two. Launched on 11 February 2002 it broadcasts from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Freeview, cable and digital satellite, occupying the same bandwidth as, but a different channel position from BBC Three. CBeebies is its sister service for younger children.

History

The channel, along with CBeebies, launched on 11 February 2002. It launched on all of the major platforms. It broadcasts between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. It shared a channel with BBC Knowledge on the ITV Digital platform. With the advent of Freeview, the channel was given its own number.

From its launch in 2002 until 2005, presentation for the CBBC Channel shared studio facilities with the channel's magazine show Xchange, before moving to studio TC9 adjoining the Blue Peter garden at BBC Television Centre. Since Monday 4 December 2006, all CBBC Presentation output on BBC One, BBC Two and the CBBC Channel has been produced from studio TC12. There was also a change in format, from two continuity presenters to just one, and several of the presenters, including Simon Grant, Matt Edmondson and Angelica Bell left as CBBC studio presenters without being replaced.
Until the end of August 2007, Gemma Hunt and Anne Foy presented CBBC continuity. Barney Harwood and Jake Humphrey made occasional appearances when not busy with other presenting commitments. In 2007, the BBC had confirmed plans for a major rebrand of CBBC. New channel idents and presentation were launched on 3 September 2007.

As of this date, the main CBBC presenter is now Ed Petrie. Accompanied by a talking cactus called Oucho, he presents on the CBBC Channel and CBBC's coverage on BBC One every weekday afternoon and BBC TWO every morning. Anne Foy is on with her dog, Elliot at the weekends. Ross Lee and Ted Robbins make occasional appearances aswell as Barney Harwood and Nev the bear.
As well as a new look , it is still unknown if the channel is to extend its hours until 9 p.m. each evening.

History

The first children-specific strand on BBC television was For The Children, first broadcast on the then BBC Television Service on Saturday 24 April 1937; it was only ten minutes long. It lasted for two years until television was closed by the Second World War in 1939.

For The Children recommenced on Sunday 7 July 1946, with twenty minutes every Sunday afternoon, with programmes for pre-school children under the banner For The Very Young. It was replaced in 1952 with Watch With Mother, which became See-Saw on 1 October 1980. During this time the BBC Television Service became BBC One when in 1964 BBC Two was launched. The new channel carried children's programming from its inception – indeed, the first programme officially broadcast on BBC Two was an edition of Playschool. See-Saw survived until 1989.
Meanwhile, weekday afternoon children's programmes on BBC One were introduced by the usual off-screen continuity announcer over special 'Children's' still captions. Finally, on Monday 9 September 1985, Children's BBC a new format with in-vision continuity announcers was launched. This was a response to a similar format adopted by ITV in January 1983. It encompassed programming on BBC One between 15:55 and 17:35.

In 2009, a report published by the BBC Trust found that scheduling changes which took place in February 2008, where programming ended at 17:15, had led to a decrease in viewers. This was especially noticeable for Blue Peter and Newsround, two of CBBC's flagship programmes; Blue Peter is now recording its lowest viewing numbers since it started in 1958, and Newsround now receives less than 100,000 viewers compared to 225,000 in 2007.

Programming

The channel carries many programmes shown on terrestrial services on BBC One and BBC Two, however the CBBC also broadcasts programmes unique to the channel.

CBBC extra

CBBC Extra is a free interactive television service from CBBC provided by BBC Red Button. It is accessible from the CBBC Channel by pressing red and then selecting CBBC Extra. It can also be accessed from any other BBC channel by pressing red and going to page number 570. The service differs across digital platforms, for example digital satellite (i.e: Sky) viewers can access a video loop. Its availability on digital terrestrial (Freeview) is dependent upon BBCi not showing other interactive services, such as major sports events coverage.
CBBC Extra offers 'Nev's Horoscopes', games, the UK Top 40, jokes sent in by viewers and a weekly competition.