A conversation from the near future: “Dad, can I watch Dr Who on the 42in?” “No. You’ve watched three episodes already today.” “OK. Mind if I borrow your lap-top, Mum? My wi-fi’s bust.” “I do mind, darling. Homework first.” “Oh all right. Where’s my iPhone? Got it. See ya.”

Exit Junior, nose glued to iPhone. The screen could be bigger but the resolution is amazing and the content is just what Junior ordered – the 2008 Dr Who Christmas special in which Britney Spears exacts excruciating revenge on her ancestors.

The only flaw in this scenario is the “near future” bit. Almost all of it is happening now: multiple children’s channels on multiple platforms competing (with each other and with a parallel but related universe of Xboxes, Nintendo Wiis and game-packed websites) for the attention of ten million British under12s.

Parental resistance still exists, more forlorn than ever. One way or another, the kids will get their fix. Questions about the quality of what they are watching are therefore more urgent than ever. But another set of questions arises about the role of children’s TV as its audience fragments: can it remain in any sense a collective experience, with large numbers drawn to seminal shows that are endlessly digested and reenacted in school playgrounds, then remembered down the decades?

Who are the Brian Cants and Basil Brushes of our age? Where’s the arched window? What happens nowadays on Fridays at five to five? Are we, in fact, the last generation of adults who for good or ill will feel nostalgia for the TV of our childhoods?

From some of the numbers churned out by Ofcom and the industry, you might well think so. Circa 1974, when children’s programmes filled only the tight slot between school pickup and tea time on three channels, Blue Peter could expect audiences of up to 5 million. Now, with 25 dedicated kids’ channels and interactive sites for every “brand”, it can expect one million at most.

There is, as Richard Deverall, head of BBC Children’s TV, puts it, “an ocean of choice”. The odds against a given programme “punching through” to register with a significant number of children and win their loyalty – never mind stimulate them in a positive and memorable way – are daunting.

At the same time, funding for nonBBC British children’s programming has fallen off a cliff. The ban now coming into force on junk food advertising aimed at children has hit every commercial kids’ channel. ITV saved £30 million last year by stopping children’s broadcasting altogether. Ofcom says investment in first-run original children’s programmes by commercial channels with a public service component to their remit (ITV1, GMTV, Channel 4 and Five) has halved since 1998.

The result is a full-blown kids’ TV crisis, according to an anxious lobby of parents and creative types led by the writer Philip Pullman and a former head of BBC Children, Anna Home. This is, apparently, a crisis of quantity as well as quality. On the nonBBC terrestrial channels there’s almost nothing left for children of any age. Nothing that they watch, at any rate: ITV1, Channel 4 and Five now get less than 1.5 per cent of the total viewing of under14s between them. And on the 23 dedicated children’s channels in the commercial sector, the heavy reliance on “acquired” material (translation: cheap imports) means 61 per cent of all programmes are cartoons.

Outside Planet Beeb, older children are especially badly catered for. “The preschool stuff will always stick,” says Home. “It’s what happens next that I’m not so sure about.” She’s referring, surprisingly politely, to the bland, repetitive electronic wallpaper that fills time between ad breaks on most commercial channels and gives British kids little chance of “hearing their own voices speak to them”.

There are exceptions. Howard Litton, head of Nickelodeon UK, unabashedly hails SpongeBob Squarepants as a “modern classic” that will stand the test of time with British kids, never mind that it’s American and animated.

It’s hard to argue with the string of BAFTAs and RTS awards won by Nickelodeon on Litton’s watch, but the BBC’s dominance of new, British-made children’s programming is almost total. It commissions 80 per cent of all “UK originated” output, and 100 per cent of homemade kids’ drama. Deverell admits this isn’t healthy. It makes for “a homogeneity, an institutional tone of voice”, he says. “I genuinely believe competition is the best spur to innovation, and we draw on the market. Half our content is from the independent sector.”

So how good are the programmes that fill CBeebies, CBBC and the Beeb’s terrestrial children’s slots? How durable? Deverell reels off shows that he “passionately believes” in (there’s a lot of “passion” in children’s TV): In the Night Garden, Charlie and Lola, Serious, Escape from Scorpion Island, the The Sarah Jane Adventures. . . It’s not just today’s kids – parents and pub quizzers 20 years hence will ultimately be the judge of Sarah Jane et al’s place in the Zeitgeist, but Deverell does have a strategy for maximising impact in a blizzard of largely indifferent content. It is to commission less new material, spend more (if necessary) on each broadcast hour, and “compete on quality, not quantity”.

This strategy is based on a principle that every big-league children’s producer seems to agree on: if the content is good enough, the audience will watch it, wherever, whenever. If it’s dross, they’ll go elsewhere. This is one reason why high-quality TV remains the industry’s holy grail, however many technical bells and whistles the multiplatform universe may offer. The other reason is that few children have credit cards with which to sign up for subscriber-only online services. For the commercial channels, even without junk food ads, TV is still where the money is.

The upshot is simple: today’s children, like their parents, are coalescing around relatively few, relatively old-fashioned TV hits. The industry calls them brands but their online presence is not so much a digital distraction as more of the same. Is a Numberjacks nostalgia-fest around the corner? I’d put money on it.

The web for kids

clubpenguin.com
Social networking for the very young

www.imbee.com
Tween-orientated blogs

www.homeworkelephant.co.uk
Help with homework when you’re too busy

www.howstuffworks.com
Answers those tricky questions they keep thinking up

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies
Web version of the TV and radio shows

www.coloring.ws/coloring.html
Colouring pages for the very young

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