Brief history of TV drama

The history of children’s TV dramas started with the BBC in the 1950s. These dramas were for large based audiences not just the target market. The first children’s TV dramas where front loaded by books, Most of these early productions were adaptations of turn of the century literary standards such as Little Women (BBC, 1950) and The Railway Children (BBC, 1951, 1957, 1968), there therefore resulted in the children turning channel to ITV.ITV at this time was offering a more adventurous children’s TV drama the adventures of Robin Hood (1955-60).




After this failure of the BBC children’s drams they gave up on this department and its funding was given to adult TV dramas. As for the time since the BBC were not funding children TV dramas, ITV were still leading the way with Enid Blyton's Famous Five and Secret Seven. These were books which were a series of 21 individual books. BBC had come back with a small budget series called Carrie's War in 1974 however this was still a front loaded series based on the origins of an authors work. This was one of the series which made children’s TV drama a more emountial piece rather than just a happy programme where nothing went wrong ,this triggered the change in the way how Children’s TV drams where shown.

In the mid 70s the change for children’s TV dramas changed when they became more chractisics of the children who watch the programmes, so as a result the resilim was more working class characters. The late 70s had some of the huge successes such as Golden hill (ITV, 1975) which featured a local gang and its council and ‘while A Bunch of Fives’ (ITV, 1977-78). At this time the BBC launched one of the most famous and long running children TV dramas Grange Hill (BBC, 1978-present), which dealed with real issues they faced such as bulling, drugs and under age pregnancy.




The golden age for the children’s dramas has at its peck with both ITV and BBC coming out with some more unusual programmes including fantasy and sci-fi children TV drama. ITV was doing a special dramarama which was just aimed for a children’s market.

In the mid 80s the BBC was at a peak turning out series after series of British TV drama, they and a series called a box of delight (BBC 1984) which was a spin off series of the chronicles of Narnia. These were supported by the help of America funding. The BBC had following successful series which had hits in America such as Tom’s Midnight Garden (BBC, 1989), The Borrowers (BBC, 1992-3) and The Phoenix and the Carpet (BBC, 1997).

In 1989 BBC put on air Byker Grove, which was about a youth club. This therefore was queried if it was more like a soap opera rather than a children’s TV drama. The BBC was turning out 20 episodes a year which was dominating the market with spin off series of selected characters of play in real life. The change the BBC had made they were making programmes the Children could relate to.

In the present day there of course is a huge more amount of channels including sky and free view. This creates a lot more opportunities for new programmes for children TV dramas. There is a lot more American children TV programmes such as Zoey 101 or Genie in a lamp. These programme Americans the TV drama TV market. This is how the messages and views are Americans. By the use of technology they can use green screen and animation to create new programmes. Stars that start in children’s TV programmes end up in the end moving Into Hollywood productions or adult TV.