BBC to inject an extra £34m into children’s TV

The BBC has committed to investing an additional £34 million into British children’s TV shows over the next three years – with a quarter of the total budget to be spent online (£31.4 million).

The new investment, delivered as a result of savings across the BBC, will see the annual children’s budget reach £124.4 million by 2019/20, up from £110 million today.

It is the biggest investment in children’s services in a generation – and comes as the Corporation looks to reinvent how it serves its youngest audience and fight back against growing competition from online services such as Netflix and Amazon.

“The new funding we’ve announced today for our Children’s services will help us ensure we can maintain our reputation for world-class programmes across our linear channels, but also increasingly offer a personalised online offering for our younger viewers,” said BBC director-general Tony Hall.

“By keeping our focus on our audiences we’ll be best placed to meet the challenges ahead of us and will ensure the BBC of 2022 continues to serves the whole of the UK.”

Alice Webb, director, children’s, added: “Our audience is rapidly changing and now more than ever we need to keep up. We’re home to the most popular kids TV channels in the UK, but as our audience increasingly move online it’s our job to stay relevant, inspiring and engaging them on whichever platform they choose.

“Today’s announcement means that whilst we’ll continue to make exceptional, distinctive public service UK children’s content across all of our platforms, we’ll also be able to develop a more personal online service that meets the evolving needs of our audience.”