Kids never mention TV to me anymore.
We lived for the telly in the 60's and early 70's.
The talking point at school was always what was on the box tea-times and Saturday mornings or the latest tv-related comic or toy you got.
Thunderbirds, Banana Splits, Double Deckers, Kung Fu, TV21 and Look-in to name but a smidgeon all ruled the day. We just couldn't get enough of kids TV.
These days schoolkids talk about computer games, You Tube and snapchat. No mention of terrestrial TV at all. I wonder in this kind of climate if children's TV can survive at all?
The whole format of kids culture is changing. Their heroes are YouTubers who show videos of themselves playing Fortnite and Minecraft or any other computer game topical at the time. Modern kids watch this stuff on their consoles all day and all night. Family TV viewing appears to be dead.
I cannot think when the last time was a kid talked about a TV show.
Like the household telephone. almost universally obsolete, I fear that childrens' TV for older kids will also go the way of the dodo. Maybe TV's themselves have had it too?
How can a kids' TV producer stop this receding tide?
What's your take on this readers?
Today's kids are a mystery to me. I see them smashing bottles and snapping young saplings, drinking alcohol and swearing, seemingly with no concern about being seen or heard in the process of their shenanigans. In my day, a greater proportion of kids would 'create' things rather than destroy them, by building Airfix kits or Meccano sets and the like. Nowadays that doesn't happen so much. Or we bought and read comics, Summer Specials and Annuals - another pastime that has been abandoned in droves, as witnessed by the lack of such periodicals nowadays compared to their heyday in our time. Perhaps because of instant Internet access to various programmes and games, kids no longer feel the need to sit in front of a TV (if they even have the time, given all their other pursuits), and now that programmes such as Blue Peter are on a channel specifically for kids, they regard it as some kind of stigma to watch such stuff. Of course, it'll be far more complex and complicated than the simple reasons I've suggested, but maybe my comment will, in some small way, help kick-start the discussion and prompt comments from others.
ReplyDeleteYes, I've noticed that all older kids programmes on TV have a single BBC channel Kid. There are some rogues like Voltron re-running on another more obscure channel but its odd to our generation that kids programmes are segregated like that I reckon. Maybe its better? Who knows! There seems to be loads of comics in newsagents but they seem to be for smaller kids. There's usually a packet of plastic toys attached to the front. But these aren't anywhere near as good as TV21, Look In or even 2000AD to my eyes. Maybe that's nostalgia clouding my vision though Kid. Perhaps every generation loves their childhood as much as we did and all the things in it: telly, comics, toys, radio etc. My daughter was born in 84 and her friends and her are as nostalgic as me about childhood. It was just before the rise of the personal computer and video games so they still had TV programmes and cool toys. Today's generation will just have consoles and games to recaim when they turn to Ebay for nostalgia I reckon.
DeleteI think you're right in that today's generation will probably be as fond of the things peculiar to their own childhood as we were, Woodsy, but that doesn't necessarily mean that today's things are definitely as good. As for comics, most publications you see in newsagents nowadays don't really qualify as actual comics in the sense that we knew them; they're more like activity and puzzle 'magazines', with the very occasional comic strip fitted in almost as an afterthought. They're referred to as comics out of expediency so that they can be placed in specific shelf-sections, but they're base pretenders in my view.
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DeleteI agree Kid. The modern kids activity magazines aren't really comics. I expect I'll start buying them next year as my Grandson turns two in September. We want to do things with him that stave off the modern obsession with mobile phones and games consoles. Toys, books and 'comics' as long as we can!
DeleteHey, our household telephone isn't obsolete!
ReplyDeleteWe still get phone calls and make them-
not sure I can be as optimistic about the rest, though.
One positive point- living by the sea, I still see small children making sand castles and playing on the beach- just as I did.
Quite reassuring.
ha ha! It would be interesting to know how many are still going strong in homes Andy! We get telemarketing calls on the landline, a daily family call and the odd friend calling. Oh, we also order takeaways on the house phone. So yes, its hanging on, excuse the pun. Sad really. As for the seaside, I don't think it can be tinkered with, the experience is timeless like you say, sandcastles and so on. Lets hope it stays that way.
Deleteim 48 and teach
ReplyDeletevery few friends watch or own a tv or read papers which have become worse trying to appeal to worse minority of unchanging customers. Kids shows are alive and well and a bigger industry than ever. Free to air tv dead more than watching screens, really new broadcasting is still tv
Hi Konsum. Fascinating. When you say free to air TV, is that what I'd call terrestrial TV here in the UK i.e. what everyone can access on theor TV without the internet or cable or anything like that?
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