Service Review of BBC Children’s Services Analysis of Public Consultation By Helen Mather and Clare Luke Public Knowledge BBC Trust Review of BBC Children’s 1 Services 2013 © Public Knowledge Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION 3 2. SUMMARY OF KEY THEMES 5 3. RESPONSES TO CONSULTATION QUESTIONS IN DETAIL 8 CBeebies – Responses from adults 9 CBBC and BBC Radio – Responses from adults 26 CBBC – Responses from children 42 4. RESPONDENT PROFILE 59 APPENDIX A – SUMMARY OF FREEFORM RESSPONSES 63 APPENDIX B – SUMMARY OF QUESTIONS 64 BBC Trust Review of BBC Children’s 2 Services 2013 © Public Knowledge 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 About the review The BBC Trust is the independent governing body of the BBC representing the interests of licence fee payers. The Trust’s role is to get the best out of the BBC for licence fee payers and to secure effective promotion of its public purposes. The Trust is required to represent the interests of licence fee payers, assess their views carefully and appropriately, and have regard to the competitive impact of the BBC’s activities on thee wider market. It must also ensure that the BBC observes high standards of openness and transparency. Each of the BBC services has a ‘service licence’, which details its remit, outlining the overall format and particular characteristics the output of the service should embrace. The licence also indicates how the specific service should contribute to the overall delivery of the BBC’s public purposes. The BBC Trust is committed to reviewing each BBC service at least once during a five year cycle. This report will be considered as part of the review of BBC Children’s services. The Trust has issued a service licence for each BBC Children’s service which sets out what they are expected to achieve. CBeebies is aimed at children aged 6 years and under. It should offer high quality, mostly UK-produced programmes, to educate and entertain the BBC's youngest audience. It should also provide a range of programmes designed to encourage learning through play in a safe environment. CBBC should provide a wide range of high quality, distinctive content for 6 to 12 year olds, including drama, entertainment, comedy, animation, news and factual programmes. The majorrity of this content should be produced in the UK. CBBC should also provide a stimulating, creative and enjoyable environment that is also safe and trusted. It should enable informal learning and encourage children to get involved by providing oppoortunities to play games, make things and chat with other children on the CBBC website. 1.2 About the Public Consultation As part of any service review, the BBC Trust considers a range of different types of evidence. This includes asking licence fee payers to respond to a number of specific questions about the services through a public consultation. The consultation period for this review was from 4th March to 31st May 2013. There were two consultation questionnaires: one for addults who have responsibility for children asking for their views on CBeebies, CBBC and BBC radio; and one for children aged 6 to 12 covering CBBC and BBCC radio. BBC Trust Review of BBC Children’s 3 Services 2013 © Public Knowledge In total 2,712 adults and 8,140 children responded using the online consultation form and a further 74 adults and children replied by emailing or posting their responses to the consultation questions. Some respondents chose to submit general freeform comments via email or by post. These responses (17 in total)) are summarised separately in Appendix A. All responses to the public consultation were analysed by Public Knowledge, an independent research company, on behalf of the BBC Trust. This report summarises the key themes expressed by the public and provides an overview of the responses. This report covers replies from individuals only; responses froom stakeholders and organisations have been considered separately by the BBC Trust. For this service review, the BBC Trust will consider a range of evidence, including the views summarised in tthis report, and will publish its conclusions on the Trust website (www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust). BBC Trust Review of BBC Children’s 4 Services 2013 © Public Knowledge 2. SUMMARY OF KEY THEMES The views presented in this reporrt are of individuals who responded to the consultation and should not be considered necessarily representative of all licence fee payers. 2.1 CBeebies The majority of adults who responded to the consultation answeered questions on CBeebies and not CBBC, and indicated that their children are aged 6 or under. The consistent message from adult respondents is that CBeebies is an excellent channel, superior to other children’s channels, providing all round high quality content. It is seen as safe, trustworthy and reliable, and as such it is a channel parents and carers are happy to let children watch unsupervised. The channel provides further reassurance in thiss regard by the absence of advertising. Distinctive content that enhances learning CBeebies is seen by parents and carers to offer high quality, entertaining content. Its content is widely thought to stimulate learning and development in young children which is felt to be lacking on other channels. Parentts/carers feel the channel can be relied on to provide positiive programming that does not include content or use language that they perceive to be harmful to, or inappropriate for, young children. There is overwhelming praise for CBeebies providing programmes that educate young children in a fun and effecctive way. Respondents feel the channel is excellent at helping to develop speech, language, reading and writing skills particularly among pre-school childdren. Many say that their children gain other benefits including social and life skills that they would not otherwise learn until they start school. The perceived structured scheduling of programmes by mixing ddifferent formats (cartoon, factual or educational) annd clustering them by age is welcomed. The use of music in some programming is particularly praised as an effective way to help children interact and engage with a topic. The range of formats provided on CBeebies is also appreciated, in particular that it does not appear to rely on cartoon animations as is seen to be the case on compaarable channels. The use of actors or presenters is seen tto make content more relevant to real life, engaging children in a personable way thereby teaching them about social interaction. The CBeebies online content is seeen to complement well the TTV channel. The provisiion of online games is seen to entertain and encouragge learning and consideered a good way to introduce young children to computer literacy. Broadens understanding of the wider world CBeebies is seen to broaden a childd’s understanding of the world by covering a range of diverse topics and by featuring a broad spectrum of different types of people. The channel is seen to help reinforce positive messages about disability by including characters and actors who are disabled without it being the focus of a BBC Trust Review of BBC Children’s 5 Services 2013 © Public Knowledge story. In addition, the inclusion of sign language in TV programmes is also praised by many. Featuring characters from a range of ethnic backgrounds is thought to help educate children about different cultures. A variety of locations that are used across the range of programming including urban and rural settings, offers a different perspective to what a child may be used to. CBeebies: suggested areas for improvement More content for the older end of the CBeebies target audience: Although the channel is perceived to broadly cater for the CBeebies audience age band, many feel that the ccurrent focus is on the lower to middle age spectrum and there are fewer programmes appropriate for children aged 5 or 6. Fewer repeats of current programming: A large proportion of parents responding to the consultation say their children watch CBeeebies every day. There is a perception that the channel repeats current prograamming too often and should instead broadcast series or programmes that have not been aired receently. For example, respondents mention bringing back Boogie Beebies and The Green Balloon Club. 2.2 CBBC Adults Among parents and carers who responded to the consultation on CBBC, the overwhelming majority praise the channel for distinctive British content that is lacking on other channels. Offers a range of high quality original British content The programmes on CBBC are seen to be of a higher quality, more educational and challenging compared to other channels. The channel includes a mix of genres and formats compared to other channels or programmes watched by their children. In particular, CBBC is felt to offer well-made British content that focuses on UK life rather than being dominated by US characters. There is also perceived to be less reliance on animation or cartoons. Provides entertaining and educational content The channel is praised by adults for including programmes that incorporate an educational element without it dettracting from its entertainment values. This includes moral and social development as well as more knowledge-based learning. Suggested areas for improvemeent More age appropriate content for transitional ages - Altthough generally the channel is felt to have programming suitable for all ages, there is a perception that there is not enough appropriate content for thhe extreme ends of the target age group. Among parents or carers with children aged between 6 and 8, there is felt to be a gap in targeted BBC output as CBeebies is felt to be too young and BBC Trust Review of BBC Children’s 6 Services 2013 © Public Knowledge much of the CBBC output is perceived to be pitched towards oolder age groups of 8 to 9 and upwards.