The 1970s have been described as a video mosaic in which sixty- or ninety-minute shows incorporated a number of segments under umbrella labels such as The New Super Friends Hour or Scooby Laff-a-Lympics. These extended shows were designed to increase audience flow across the entire morning.
Children's programming in the 1980s was influenced by the "television revolution" as the growth of cable and VCR penetration began to erode the network audience, and international co-ventures began to change the production process. Cartoons remained the standard children's fare, but live action shows began to increase in number.By the 1990s, the Children's Television Act , which sought to clean-up kid's tv in favor of more edjamacational stuff, further changed the landscape of children's television in some permanent and unexpected ways. A 1999 piece in The Humanist, discusses a June 1997 report from The Annenberg Public Policy Center which revealed:
"a number of "unintended consequences" of the act, including a decline in locally produced children's programming and network shows that were "educationally weaker" than many of the syndicated and local shows they were replacing. A 1998 Annenberg report suggests that, in some cases, program quality had actually declined since the new rules. For example, the number of network shows labeled "highly educational" dropped from 43 percent to 29 percent, while teen programs designated "high quality" fell from 80.6 percent to just 28.3 percent. According to Annenberg's 1999 report, 21.2 percent of the programs broadcasters were counting as educational were judged to have little or no educational value."The 1990 congressional act effectively destroyed all local and syndicated teen/children's programming. That meant that the weird and wacky local shows of my childhood like Steampipe Alley and The Candy Apple Newsletter from my husband's childhood, went the way of the dinosaur. (Some people would say mercifully so-this clip from Steampipe Alley is even more bizarre than even I remember.)
On the network front, broadcasters had even less incentive to be creative about their children's programming as their not-quite-as-educational slate of shows began to replace quirky syndicated TV series like Romper Room and The New Zoo Revue. The very same kinds of syndicated shows that the Annenberg report found tended to be more educational than their network replacements. So even though the Children's Televison Act sought to class up our Saturday mornings with more educational television it actually achieved the opposite affect. Additionally, by hobbling syndicated children's shows, the act made the pool of animation studios and production houses from which the networks pulled their kid's shows even smaller. Amy B. Jordan, who directed the Annenberg's 1997 research explained:
The loss of syndicated and local shows is especially significant because most of the networks' educational offerings are only "minimally" or "moderately" educational, while the syndicated shows they replaced were far more often rated "highly educational." Among network shows, Jordan notes a trend toward "less creativity in children's programming than there has been in the years past [so that] Hang Time looks like Saved by the Bell which looks like City Guys, while Pepper Ann looks like Recess." That's no coincidence. These days, the networks tend to draw from just one or two production companies for their entire lineup. For the second year, CBS has acquired all of its programs from a single animator. The result, according to Jordan, is that "the independent producer--the producer that's out there with one great idea--isn't really going to be able to get his foot in the door, and I think it's a shame."Thus the 90s doubled down on the whole toy/cartoon thing and foreshadowed the rise of tween series on cable TV like High School Musical and Hanna Montana with shows like Saved By the Bell, California Dreams and Boy Meets World. Then for every Swan's Crossing there was some other even more blindingly white, live-action teen-a-thon to take its place. Shows like one of my all time favorites, Pryor's Place, which only lasted one season, would most definitely not have passed muster in a post-Children's Television Act world. Though it was network tv, (CBS), Pryor's Place was clearly a holdover from the laissez fare days of kiddie programming. Produced by kids TV titans, Sid and Marty Krofft, starring Richard Pryor as himself (kind of an unlikely kid's TV star, kind of), and featuring a snazzy theme song from Ray Parker, Jr., Pryor's Place was an incongruous melange of puppets and live grown-up guests, like Willie Nelson and John Ritter. The series no doubt paved the way for Peewee's Playhouse which premiered on CBS two years later and enjoyed a five season run.
Even in the UK, Saturday morning children's programming experienced a death knell:
The growth of multi-channel broadcasting left terrestrial channels battling for young viewers with 30-plus rivals, including Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel.
And while magazine shows had endeavoured to introduce an educational element, with guests such as Margaret Thatcher or author Roald Dahl, these interviews "weren't going to cut it" against the likes of SpongeBob SquarePants, says Mr Smith. "It's a hard thing to say but that's why they withered, unfortunately."
Children's habits had also changed. Mumsnet founder Carrie Longton says today's youngsters have much more choice than previously, with many more weekend activity clubs.
"In our day you watched Swap Shop, listened to Ed Stewart on the radio, rode a bike or played out," she says.
"Now there's always other things to do, like computer games. The majority of families have more than one TV, so one child can be watching CBeebies while another has recorded Britain's Top Model and is watching that in the next room.Does that mean I want kids' TV to go back to the way it was in the 70s and 80s? No. Though I do think there's something to be said for maintaining regional voices and local content on the TV dial in some significant way. Only a handful of public access channels and local PBS stations keep any sort of regional programming alive these days sadly. I do think, with some mechanisms to ensure equity and diversity, local TV would allow easier entree for folks who could potentially present a less homogeneous television picture. While the interwebs are creating spaces for big people to enjoy TV off the grid, there's not the same level of safe, accessible content for kids. Any new children's programming has a long uphill climb past a limited number of gatekeepers before it can make its way to your child's TV screen. That's the one thing that makes me the most sad about losing those long Saturday mornings.
