Hail CBeebies - 10:50 am, Wed 1st Sep 2010
Before parenthood, my TV viewing habits were probably pretty similar to a lot of other men in their forties. A lot of news and sport. Drama was mostly provided by HBO through series like The Sopranos and The Wire (and unlike that Tory MP who tried to compare Britain with Baltimore I actually watched The Wire). Another feature was that these were viewed as much on DVD as when they were screened. But after parenthood, TV has changed, changed utterly.
I know there are parents out there who deny their children all TV and as someone once said, I salute their courage and indefatigability. But I cannot count myself among the ranks of these parenting heroes. When you have a permanently on the move toddler trying variously to break every bit of electronics in the house and turn the cooker on when you’re not looking, the magical oasis of calm provided by a bit of children’s TV is valued like gold dust. I know that, like chocolate and ice cream we shouldn’t have too much of it, but we convince ourselves that a little bit won’t do any harm.
There are plenty of children’s TV channels, but most are subscription. Enter cbeebies and some others like Peppa Pig on Channel Five. It’s a world of talking trains, singing monkeys and my favourite, Timmy Time about a lamb who goes to nursery with his pals including a snorkel wearing duck, a pig in a home made sweater and a nervous hedgehog who rolls into a ball every time he gets scared. The teachers are a wise owl and a heron.
Timmy’s a bit hapless and usually messes things up, but he has the footballing skills of Ronaldinho. If you don’t think a lamb playing keepie uppy is funny, tune in. Timmy Time is a work of comic art.
This is a crucial dimension of public broadcasting which I confess I gave little thought to before becoming a parent. Of course kids shouldn’t have too much TV but I am sure most parents value the respite a little can bring and the lessons that can be conveyed in terms of food, behaviour and so on can be really valuable. The good thing about cbeebies too is there are no adverts. On other channels some of the programmes are good but I have to confess I’m no fan of all the ads in between.
So at a time when there is a debate about what the BBC does and when new government has the knives out for the Corporation we should appreciate value of this programming. The lesson I’ve learned is that the value of the BBC is not all about flagship news programmes. It’s about Timmy Time too.
