Blue Peter is suffering its worst audience figures for 50 years, prompting an urgent rethink of all BBC programming aimed at children aged 6-12.

In a review of the corporation’s children’s output, the BBC Trust says today that it is concerned that Blue Peter’s figures are at all-time lows after the programme was brought forward 20 minutes last year to make room for The Weakest Link.

Blue Peter’s audience among its target viewers was down to fewer than 100,000 on some afternoons last year after the change, a fall of more than 50 per cent on the average achieved during the whole of 2007.

All BBC children’s programmes, including Newsround, have suffered a collapse in viewing figures, and executives have been ordered to find ways of improving the corporation’s reach as the trust fears that children aged 6-12 are unable to get an education in citizenship from television.

Mark Wakefield, the head of performance at the BBC Trust, said that children’s programmes reached 5 per cent fewer viewers in the target group last year. “The trust is making it clear that this is not something that can be ignored. There has to be a plan of action for tackling it,” he said.

The Weakest Link was moved from BBC Two to BBC One in February last year to replace Neighbours, which had been bought by Five. The quiz show’s 45-minute running time meant that children’s programmes on BBC One had to be moved forward by 20 minutes. Blue Peter is now at 4.35pm.

The change has only worsened long-running trends. As recently as 2003 Blue Peter attracted 335,000 young viewers on average. Children, particularly boys, are now choosing to watch cartoons, or even sport, on digital channels instead.

Newsround has also been falling in popularity, but a move to 5.05pm has been followed by an audience slump. Watched by an average of 226,000 in the 6-12 age group as recently as 2007, the audience tumbled to fewer than 100,000 in the months immediately after it was moved forward. It has since recovered slightly, but it has remained just above the 100,000 figure.

Biddy Baxter, the former editor of Blue Peter, who spent a quarter of a century running the programme until 1988, attacked the change of timing. “The scheduling is absolutely ridiculous. The fact is that at 4.35pm so much of the audience is not yet back from school. This looks like a decision made by people who are thinking of the audience as a whole and not thinking about children. It looks like the BBC is losing the plot”.

Anne Home, a former BBC head of children’s programmes who commissioned Grange Hill and Teletubbies, said that the audience trends were certainly not good. Now chairman of the campaign group Save Kids’ TV, she said: “What this shows is that it is important to schedule children’s programmes on the main channels at a time when children are watching.”

The initial response of BBC chiefs to the trust’s review was to ignore the findings relating to Blue Peter and Newsround and to concentrate on the areas where it praises management. Richard Deverell, controller of BBC children’s output, said that there was “no better stamp of endorsement on the work we are doing than from the parents and children who say they love and value what we do on CBeebies and CBBC”. The statement said only that the BBC would seek “the best ways of continuing to reach children via television and the web”.

The BBC remains by far the largest investor in children’s television, since ITV has virtually abandoned young audiences in favour of game shows such as Golden Balls. It is estimated that ITV and other commercial broadcasters have cut their budgets by £35 million in recent years. The BBC held its spending roughly steady at £114 million last year.

The voyage of discovery

— Devised for five to eight-year-olds, Blue Peter first broadcast on October 16, 1958. It is named after the blue-and-white flag hoisted by a ship before it sails, representing the voyage of discovery the programme intends to take children on

— Tony Hart created the logo for the show and the famous Blue Peter badge

— Blue Peter’s tune, written by Ashworth Hope in the early 20th century, is called Barnacle Bill. The show has had 11 variations of the tune

— Blue Peter has had 34 hosts in its 51 years. The first were Christopher Trace and Leila Williams. The current ones are Joel Defries, Andy Akinwolere and Helen Skelton, above

— The first studio pet, a dog called Petra, was introduced in 1963 but died of canine distemper after one show. She was replaced with a double and the death of the original was never announced on air

— In 2006 it was revealed that the Unicef Shoe Biz Appeal was rigged. The “winner” was a caller from the production team. In 2007 the production team also overruled a public vote for the name of a new kitten. The same year the BBC admitted that child actors were used to receive prizes from the comedian John Culshaw.

Sources: Times archive, BBC, IMDB

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