Children's television series are
television programmes designed for, and
marketed to
children, normally broadcast
during the
morning and
afternoon. They can sometimes run in the early
evening, for the children that go to school.
The purpose of the shows is mainly to entertain and sometimes to
educate the young audience about basic
life skills or ideals.
Programmes vary in their intended age group audience and style of
presentation. Some take the form of
game
shows or
comedies, and many take the form
of
animated series, although early
animations were often intended for an adult audience.
Children's
television is nearly as old as television itself, with early
examples including shows such as Blue Peter
, Captain
Tugg, The Magic
Roundabout, Howdy
Doody, Clangers,
Flower Pot Men, The Singing Ringing Tree and
Mister Rogers'
Neighborhood . In the United States
, early children's television was often a marketing
branch of a larger corporate product, such as Disney, and it rarely contained an
educational element. Though there is some debate on the
intended audience, later non-educational children's television
programmes included the
science
fiction programmes of
Irwin Allen
(most notably
Lost in Space),
the fantasy series of
Sid and Marty
Krofft, and the extensive cartoon empire of
Hanna-Barbera.
Many children's programmes also have a large adult following,
sometimes in appreciation of their quality and educational value,
and sometimes among adults who watched the shows as children or
with their own children and now have a nostalgic emotional
connection.
TV programmes for older children
Since the mid 1980s, there have been
teen
comedies and
teen dramas such as
Byker Grove and
Grange Hill and that are geared toward older
children (typically between the ages of 12 and 17).
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