So it appears that BBC7 will be renamed BBC4 Extra. It appears that BBC7′s current children’s output was not serving audiences well.
As a result the amount of children’s programming will be reduced from 1,400 hours to 350 hours per year.
I think part of the faliure of childrens programming on BBC7 stems from the fact that it’s essentially a podcast. I don’t listen to BBC 7 live - neither does anyone I know. I tend to listen to sci fi and comedy. I tend to listen via the website. I doubt very much the average child will be keen to log onto the BBC website, navigate past the boring news stuff to find the IPlayer, then find the radio section, find the BBC7 site, find the the programme you want to listen to and click play… ah to hell with it, Hanah Montana’s on itv instead
And therein lies the rub, children’s programming is predominately a visual medium, kids in the playground don’t stand around talking about the wizard new programme they heard on the wireless ( it is, after all not the 1940′s) . I very much doubt Ben 10 would be half as popular with the kids if it had been a radio play. I am sure that most listeners who listen to the ‘childrens’ programming on BBC7 are not children at all.
I have listened to “Biggles flies north”, and even some tintin when they ran it ( the dog talked- thats too much for my feeble mind to comprehend!)
To combat this, The BBC trust will make make audio downloads availiable fromn the ceebeebies website . again I dont hold up a great deal of hope for these.