It's odd. Modern British kids don't talk about TV programmes like my generation did. In fact they don't mention them at all.
I would say that they have become an irrelevance to high school age kids 11-16. There screen watching consists of You Tube and Netflix and none of the 'main' TV channels like BBC and ITV, which I grew up with.
I could name a hundred kids' TV shows I loved back in the Sixties and Seventies. My daughter could as well from the Eighties and early Nineties.
I wonder what effect this shift has on toy marketing and product placement? Back in the day we watched TV, say Thunderbirds, and rushed straight out with our parents to buy the toys and then watched the next episode and rushed out and so on. How can this process happen now?
Is there a future for TV-related toys, the very essence of our baby boomer childhoods?
It almost questions the future relevance of the main TV channels completely if an entire generation doesn't bother with them now. Will they ever?
What say you readers?
Kids TV shows have been sidelined to their own channels, so if parents are watching telly, there's nothing for the kids to watch in between. Though now that most kids have TVs in their rooms, perhaps that not such a factor as it might seem. I very occasionally watched bits of Blue Peter when it was on BBC 1, but haven't seen it since it switched to the CBBC TV channel. Our golden childhood is long over, alas, and I sometimes wonder if today's kids will look back on their viewing habits with the same fond affection as we do.
ReplyDeleteWe did have a golden childhood didn't we Kid. I wonder if social historians will think that too. I suppose what we had in the Sixties was the dawn of children's telly. They were so damn good in those days.
DeleteRapidly changing media technology has the cause and effect of rapidly changing social and consumer trends. This has a massive impact upon kids who are the consumers and trend setters of the future. Their childhood-world experience seems so different to ours on many levels, including TV viewing. I don't envy the pressures they face or the adult world they will enter, but then kids adapt better. Society appears in a state of confusion and constant flux. The landscape has changed and I feel disoriented at times. I may just be a stick-in-the-mud resisting the inevitable, Woodsy :)
ReplyDeleteI agree Tone that society is in flux but then again I bet my our parents would have said the same. Technology does appear to change behaviour and we all seem to look back fondly on the tech we had as kids. Mine were TV, records, cassettes and later VHS. I don't consider DVD's and CD's as part of my growing up as I was already in my twenties when they arrived. Today's kids will no doubt one day have websites devoted to nostalgically looking back at You Tube and Netflix.
DeleteI guess we should remember that children in GB from the 1950s and earlier have equally fond memories of the radio, before most families had a TV. Having said that, I regret the fragmentation of viewing habits, though can't blame viewers, as I don't watch a lot of the main channels, as there is so little (apart form the news) that interests me.
ReplyDeleteFair comment AB, yes, the radio or as my parents called it, the wireless. I wonder if radio listening is dropping among the young? I only listen to the news on Radio 4 and the occasional ghost and horror tale. I listened to the charts when I was a kid. On a Sunday I think!
DeleteI agree with Kid. Also, childrens TV seems to be aimed at a much younger age group these days too. For example the smaller ones are into Peppa Pig and such and toys of these characters do sell well. As kids get just slightly older now they are more into their phones where they can be entertained watching Youtube clips, play games, watch films, and kids also play computer games at home. SF shows like Thunderbirds are very rare on TV these days. When Vivid brought out its Thunderbirds Are Go toy range in 2015 they lost tons of money as they expected it to be another boom like the 90s but were left with loads of stock. Even toys for Doctor Who and Star Wars don't sell as well as they did 10 years ago.
ReplyDeleteSome toy/model manufacturers these days have therefore decided to make products for the older person (middle aged and above) who is prepared to spend a lot of money for items they have always wanted a toy/model of. These are great models, very detailed and accurate and look good on the shelf, but aren't and can't really be played with.
I didn't realise that Vivid lost load of money Yorkie on the TAG toys. Did they misread the mood of the generation? Did the TV series do well?
DeleteI think the TV series has done just fine. Final two episodes in the next couple of weeks. We've mentioned it before that it's made for a younger audience (like most kids TV these days)and shown early in a morning, though it does get a repeat on Sunday tea time. It hasn't had the impact that the original series had(comic cancelled after just a few issues, no annual etc) but it's a different type of programme. It's been fun but I doubt if it'll be remembered much in years to come or if websites will have articles about it like the original still has. Hopefully they'll round it off by rescuing Jeff Tracy in the final episode.
DeleteBlimey Yorkie, I hadn't realised they cancelled the TAG comic and that there was no annual. What a shame.
DeleteInteresting post and great thread. Not being into streaming services, I'm seeing a disconnect with my current social media friends. As a kid, you at least had the potential of seeing all the popular culture material available.
ReplyDeleteToday there's just so much of it, often behind paywalls.
I'm somewhat bemused to realise that what I grew up with is 50 years in the past, technologically AND culturally!
Yep, it all seems so different to our childhoods Lewis I agree. I wonder if anyone under the age of 40 or 50 ever look at this website?
DeleteHere in the States, based on my wife's informal survey (she is a teacher) not one in 10 kids have TV in their homes anymore. Everything is on the computer, laptop, iPhone or other digital device. The biggest thing for school-age kids is watching other "real" kids doing stunts and things on youtube.
ReplyDeleteI remember I used bounce out of bed in the AM to watch an episode of Thunderbirds before biking off to school, and RUNNING home after school to catch the latest episode of Captain Scarlet. Fond memories of a Golden Age, lone gone.
That makes sense Zigg, a decreasing number of TV's. British kids are more or less the same , watching other kids playing minecraft and fortnite on You Tube! Oddly enough, they do seem enthusiastic about You Tube and stuff online, maybe they are just as enthusiastic as we were!
DeleteTelevision arrived here in New Zealand in 1960, and I was born in 1961, so I was in the first generation of Kiwi children to grow up with TV. Among the first shows I can remember is Stingray, watched at the home of a neighbour who had TV. Only watched a few episodes of the new Thunderbirds Are Go, and disliked it - long live the real Gerry Anderson shows. I did not have much in the way of film and TV toys at the time, except for a few Annuals. Now it is the Star Cars I mostly collect in diecast form, especially the shows from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, either vintage (if I can afford them) or modern issues. Perhaps the children of today will collect computer game related models - Hot Wheels have done a number of these, I guess Super Mario Brothers is now old enough to count as vintage ?
ReplyDeleteNice to hear from you Paul. I'm just catching up with emails and comments so apologies if you're just hearing from me. I was born in 1960 and watched what you watched I think, Stingray, Thunderbirds etc. I like your collecting theme of star cars. So what have you got? Batmobile, Black Beauty?
DeleteLots of Batmobiles by Hot Wheels, all fairly modern, but very nice. No Black Beauty from The Green Hornet, although Corgi have done this. Lots of James Bond, including the terrific James Bond Car Collection partwork, Corgi, and Hot Wheels. Vintage Corgi and Dinky models are expensive, although some times you can pick up unboxed models at reasonable prices. The little Corgi Juniors are more affordable. A few Johnny Lightning, and modern Greenlight models, and plenty of Hot Wheels. I prefer the smaller scales, but do have a few of the larger Corgi models - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (one of the best movies ever made), Starsky and Hutch, Man from UNCLE, The A-Team. Referring to a different entry I came across, ERTL in the US did an Airwolf helicopter, and the Matchbox Mission Helicopter is Blue Thunder in all but name. There were also large scale plastic kits of both helicopters. I am also a modeller, although I have not done much modelling in recent years, must get back into it.
DeleteA fab collection for sure Paul. If you ever want to share pics I would be happy to feature them here on Moonbase.
DeleteMy 5yr old grandbaby will not sit and watch TV shows, but she can ratlle off any number of YouTube stars that she watches on her tablet!!
ReplyDeleteMy case rests Ed. Kids TV is on its way out.
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