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CBBC (a contraction of the original name Children's BBC) is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14. Today, CBBC is joined by two dedicated digital channels, launched in 2002 and using the same brands and presentation and the programme strands.

CBBC is the name given to the digital channel for children aged 6–12, and also the brand used for CBBC programming on BBC One and BBC Two. CBeebies is the digital channel for children aged under 6, and also airs its own strand on BBC One and Two. In 2006, as part of the BBCs Creative Futures strategic review, the CBBC brand was redefined as being for children aged 6–12. A new brand for teenagers, BBC Switch, was launched in 2007 and ended in 2010, though this did not have a dedicated channel and was not part of the BBC Children's division.

CBBC currently broadcasts as a 12-hour-a-day digital channel (the CBBC Channel) available on most UK digital platforms from 7am to 7pm. The brand is also used for the broadcast of children's programmes on BBC One (weekday afternoons) and BBC Two (mornings, daily), although these strands are to be phased out by the end of 2012, as part of the BBC's "Delivering Quality First" cost-cutting initiative.^[1] CBBC programmes are also broadcast in high definition alongside other BBC content on the BBC HD channel, generally from 3:30pm to 7pm on weekends, unless the channel is covering other events. BBC-produced children's programming, in native languages of Scotland and Wales, also airs on BBC Alba and S4C respectively.

History[link]

The BBC has produced and broadcast programmes for children since the 1930s. The first children-specific strand on BBC television was For The Children, first broadcast on what was then the single 'BBC Television Service' on Saturday 24 April 1937; it was only ten minutes long. It lasted for two years before being taken off air when the service closed due to the Second World War in September 1939.

Following the war, For the Children recommenced on Sunday 7 July 1946, with a twenty minute slot every Sunday afternoon and the addition of programmes for pre-school children under the banner For The Very Young., and over the years they became an established feature of the early afternoons on the BBC's main channel BBC One.

In 1952, the "For The Children" / "For The Very Young" branding was dropped; older children's programmes (such as Blue Peter 1958) would now be introduced by regular announcers whilst younger children's programming was broadcast under the Watch With Mother banner. The 1964 launch of BBC Two allowed additional room for children's programming with an edition of Play School technically being the first official programme to air on BBC Two due to a power cut blacking out most of the previous night's programming. On 1 October 1980, Watch With Mother was replaced by See-Saw, which was moved to BBC2 five years later.

Meanwhile, weekday afternoon children's programmes on BBC One were introduced by the usual off-screen continuity announcer, though often specially-designed menus and captions would be used. On 9 September 1985, this long-standing block of children's programming was rebranded as Children's BBC, and for the first time the children's block had dedicated idents and an in-vision presenter. Previously the BBC had broadcast children's programming using BBC1's team of regular duty announcers. The launch presenter for this block, and thus the first Children's BBC presenter of the current format, was Phillip Schofield.

During the 1990s, Children's BBC began to be referred to informally on-air as 'CBBC' (this occurred at around the same time that ITV's rival service "Children's ITV" began to be referred to as CITV in a similar manner). The official billing name of Children's BBC remained in place, however, until the BBC's network-wide branding refresh of October 1997, when the official on-air branding changed to CBBC. (CITV officially adopted their short name in their own branding refresh the following year).

Further changes to the schedule were rolled out during the 1990s and 2000s, including the introduction of Sunday morning programmes on BBC Two, initially in the Open University's summer break and then subsequently year-round; the introduction of a regular weekday morning 'breakfast show' format, also on BBC Two; the relocation of the 10am pre-school slot to BBC Two and the relocation of the 1pm pre-school slot to run on BBC One at the start of the afternoon block.

The launch of digital channel BBC Choice in 1998 saw the channel broadcasting children's programming in a Saturday afternoon slot which was subsequently replaced by the daily 6am-7pm service CBBC on Choice, which aired archive pre-school programming and was itself the precursor of the current CBBC Channel and CBeebies services.

In 2002, the launch of the CBBC Channel and the CBeebies Channel saw a wide variety of programmes, both new and archive, being shown again on the new channels from 6/7am until 7pm.

In 2009, a report published by the BBC Trust found that scheduling changes which took place in February 2008, where programming ended at 17:15, had led to a decrease in viewers.^[2] This was especially noticeable for Blue Peter and Newsround, two of CBBC's flagship programmes; Blue Peter is now recording its lowest viewing numbers since it started in 1958, and Newsround now receives fewer than 100,000 viewers compared to 225,000 in 2007.^[3][4] The changes were made following the BBC's loss of the rights to soap opera Neighbours, which had for many years been broadcast between the end of CBBC and the start of the 6pm news; when the decision to move daytime editions of The Weakest Link from BBC Two to One to fill the gap, CBBC had to move to an earlier slot, as Weakest Link" is longer than Neighbours was.

As part of the Delivering Quality First proposals submitted by the BBC in October 2011 and approved by the BBC Trust in May 2012, all children's programming on BBC One and Two would be moved permanently to the CBBC and CBeebies channels following the digital switchover. It was found that the majority of child viewers watched the programmes on these channels already and that only 7% of these children watched CBBC programmes on BBC One and Two only.^[5]

Management[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

CBBC is operated by the BBC Children's division, part of BBC North. The division relocated to MediaCityUK in Salford Quays in May 2011, after being based in the East Tower of TV Centre in London since 1964. Management of the division, and broadcast and production of presentation links for CBBC and CBeebies is now based there. In September 2011 flagship magazine show Blue Peter began live broadcasts from its new home. It will be joined in November 2011 by daily news programme Newsround.

The BBC Children's division also operates CBeebies. Overall strategic responsibility for all of the BBC's services for children rests with the Director of Children's, Joe Godwin (since late 2009), with commissioning decisions for the two channels being made by a Controller of each channel; Daian Kavanagh (since 2009) is Controller of CBBC, and Kay Benbow (since 2010) is Controller of CBeebies.

Scheduling[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The original scheduling from the mid/late 1980s consisted of a routine whereby BBC1 would broadcast a 25-minute block at around 10:00 usually including the 'main' pre-school show (Play School, then from 1988 Playbus/Playdays) and children's birthday cards, with BBC2 showing a 5-10 minute programme or programmes at around 13:00, before BBC1 ran the main afternoon block aimed at older children. Weekend programmes consisted chiefly of Saturday morning programmes on BBC1, such as Going Live!. Children's BBC would also broadcast on weekday mornings during school holidays on either BBC1 or 2, which was done under the But First This banner for a time.

This schedule altered little throughout the 1990s, with the introduction of Sunday morning programming and a full breakfast show being the only changes. The current general schedule for children's shows on BBC terrestrial TV is as follows:

• CBeebies content (under 6) from 06:00 - 07:00 every morning on BBC Two and from 08:30 - 11:35 on BBC Two weekdays.^[6]
• CBBC content (ages 6–12) from 07:00 - 08:30 on BBC Two (weekdays), 07:00 - 12:00 on BBC Two (Saturdays), 07:00 - 10:00 on BBC Two (Sundays) and 15:05- 17:15 on BBC One (weekdays).

These schedules are subject to change, particularly around holiday times; the current holiday-time arrangement.

Programming[link]

CBBC produces a wide range of programme types, including drama, news, entertainment, and documentary and factual programming. CBBC therefore is often seen as offering a similar mix of formats to the wider BBC, albeit tailored to suit a young audience. Byker Grove was one of the very few shows that was not aimed at young children, rather a more teenage/young adult audience as it dealt with some controversial themes.

The longest-running CBBC programme is the magazine show Blue Peter. Other notable current and former programmes include Grange Hill, Newsround, Live & Kicking and recent hit Tracy Beaker Returns.

Presentation[link]

Studio set[link]

From its launch in 1985 until 1994, Children's BBC was presented from the regular continuity announcer's booth in the BBC1 network control area, which had a fixed camera so that the presenter could appear in vision; as it remained an operational continuity booth, the presenter would partly direct their own links by way of vision and sound mixers built into the studio desk.

The booth became known as 'the Broom Cupboard' due to its small size (the term was first used to refer to a smaller temporary booth, but was later retroactively applied to the main booth). The plain booth wall behind the presenter would be livened up with elements of set dressing, VT monitors and pictures sent in by viewers. Occasionally, when Children's BBC was going out on BBC2 rather than 1 due to events coverage, the presenter would be located in the BBC2 continuity booth, which was not set dressed for Children's BBC, for transmission purposes.

There were two presentation studios - larger than the Broom Cupboards but smaller than full programme studios - known as Pres A and Pres B. It was not initially thought economically viable to use these for daily Children's BBC links, hence the use of the Broom Cupboard. However, by 1987 these studios were being used for the mid-morning 'birthday card' slots and weekend and holiday morning strands such as 'But First This". The main afternoon strand remained in the Broom Cupboard.

In 1994, Pres A was refurbished and became the regular home for all Children's BBC presentation including the weekday afternoon block; the presenters no longer had to operate the broadcast equipment, although a broom cupboard-style area in the corner of Pres A contained its own mixer was used for the birthday slot and weekend mornings to save on crew, and the larger set allowed for more dynamic presentation, with more presenters, characters, features, games and guests. A new 3D version of the then logo of Children's BBC was commissioned to mark the move.

In 1997, Children's BBC moved again when 'Pres A' was decommissioned and CBBC moved to the purpose-built Studio TC9, adjacent to the Blue Peter garden at BBC Television Centre. The first broadcasts from Studio 9 were in June 1997; this was followed in October by the launch of the new-look CBBC branding. TC9 continued to be the regular home of CBBC broadcasts on BBC One and Two until 2005 and was also used to record CBBC On Choice links between 2000 and 2002.

In 2002, TC2 became the home of CBBC Channel links, plus the channel's XChange and UK Top 40 programmes, whilst CBeebies operated from the smaller TC0.

In Autumn 2004, the studio arrangements for CBBC were changed again. The CBBC Channel moved from TC2 to TC9, with BBC One / Two links and the UK Top 40 show moving to TC10 located on the sixth floor of TV Centre. BBC One and Two links then moved back into TC9 alongside CBBC Channel in March 2006 as the number of studios available to CBBC was reduced.

In December 2006, there was a further reduction in CBBC facilities. A chroma key set was assembled in TC12, becoming the home of all CBBC links on BBC One, BBC Two and CBBC Channel until September 2007. There was also a reduction in the team of on air presenters. The last live CBBC links from TC9 were broadcast on Friday 1 December 2006; the studio was then mothballed but has since been brought back into use for individual programmes including TMi and SMart.

On 3 September 2007, the CSO studio was dropped in a relaunch which saw a small studio set built in TC12.^[7][8] As part of the relaunch, new logos, presenters and idents were introduced. The design of the new 'office' set has been compared to the original 'broom cupboard', though unlike the 'broom cupboard' the 'office' is not a functioning continuity suite. CBBC presentation originated from Studio HQ5 at MediaCityUK in Salford Quays for the first time on Monday 5 September 2011 as part of the relocation of the BBC's Children's department (incorporating both CBBC and CBeebies).

Current presenters[link]

Former presenters[link]

Guest and relief continuity presenters have included Adam Fleming, Sam Nixon and Mark Rhodes (2009), and Dani Harmer (2010). Michael Adams appeared frequently on mornings of Tuesdays and Thursdays between 2010 and 2012, he mentioned on his Twitter feed he may be returning later in the year.

Logos and idents[link]

Other services[link]

CBBC Extra[link]

CBBC Extra is a free interactive television service from CBBC provided by BBC Red Button. It is accessible from the CBBC Channel by pressing red and then selecting CBBC Extra. It can also be accessed from any other BBC channel by pressing red and going to page number 570. The service differs across digital platforms, for example digital satellite (i.e.: Sky) viewers can access a video loop. Its availability on digital terrestrial (Freeview) is dependent upon BBC Red Button not showing other interactive services, such as major sports events coverage.^[9] CBBC Extra also had a feature called CBBC Quiz. This feature allows the viewers to play a quiz and for viewers to send in their question which could be shown to the nation. There are 5 levels, each containing 5 questions.

CBBC UK VHS Releases[link]

Numerous CBBC Programmes have been released on VHS by BBC Video. Video releases either contained numerous videos from one particular programme, or were a compilation tape of numerous episodes from lots of different programmes. A list of these compilation tapes is shown below.

CBBC website[link]

The CBBC website provides a wide range of activities for children aged 6–12, such as games, videos, puzzles, print and makes, pre-moderated message boards. It also contains a TV guide and an area where kids can apply to be on a show. It provides content for all brands including Horrible Histories, Shaun the Sheep, Blue Peter, Newsround, Tracy Beaker, Sadie J, Young Dracula and Dick and Dom. It also gives kids the chance to view the CBBC iPlayer to replay CBBC programmes for up to seven days. www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc

References[link]

BBC portal

External links[link]

• CBBC at BBC Online
• "And Now, For Younger Viewers..." A history of CBBC continuity from 1985 to 1994, from Off The Telly
• The Broom Cupboard.co.uk, a history of CBBC continuity from 1985 to 1992, with over 150 pictures
• BBC considers end of children's shows on BBC 1 (Guardian)

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Elisabeth Sladen
Sladen in 2003
Born	Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen (1946-02-01)1 February 1946 Liverpool, England, UK
Died	19 April 2011(2011-04-19) (aged 65) Southall, London, England, UK[1]
Cause of death	Cancer
Nationality	British
Other names	Elizabeth Sladen, Elisabeth Miller
Occupation	Actress, presenter, writer
Television	Doctor Who The Sarah Jane Adventures K-9 and Company Gulliver in Lilliput Send in the Girls Take My Wife
Spouse	Brian Miller (m. 1968–2011, her death)
Children	Sadie Miller

Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen^[2] (1 February 1946^[3] – 19 April 2011^[4]) was an English actress best known for her role as Sarah Jane Smith in the British television series Doctor Who. She was a regular cast member from 1973 to 1976, alongside both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, and reprised the role many times in subsequent decades, both on Doctor Who and its spin-offs, K-9 and Company and The Sarah Jane Adventures.^[5]

Early life[link]

Elisabeth Sladen born Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen^[2] was born 1 February 1946 in Liverpool, England. Sladen was the only child of Tom Sladen, who fought in World War I and served in the Home Guard during World War II, and Gladys (née Trainer).^[2]

She developed an interest in performing at an early age, beginning dance lessons when she was five, and dancing in one production with the Royal Ballet. She was a primary school contemporary of future politician Edwina Currie, appearing in at least one school production with her. She went onto secondary school and attended Aigburth Vale High School for Girls.^[6]

Career[link]

Early career[link]

Sladen attended the Elliott-Clarke Drama School. In 1964, she made her first film appearance in Ferry Cross the Mersey as an uncredited extra.^[7] Sladen then joined the Hillbark Players, for their open-air production of Much Ado About Nothing, playing Hero.^[8]

After two years at drama school, Sladen began work at the Liverpool Playhouse repertory company as an assistant stage manager.^[9] Her first stage appearance at the Playhouse, was as a maid in Twelfth Night.^[2] A few months later, she played a corpse in The Physicists.^[2] However, she was scolded for giggling on stage due to her future husband Brian Miller whispering the words "Respiration nil, Aston Villa two" in her ear while he was playing a doctor.^[9] Sladen was such a good assistant stage manager that she did not get many acting roles, a problem that was solved when she accidentally made a mistake on one occasion.^[2] An earlier interview indIcated that she deliberately made mistakes on several occasions.^[10] As a result, she began to get on-stage roles again.

Sladen eventually moved into weekly repertory work, travelling to various locations in England. Sladen and Miller, now married, moved to Manchester, spending three years there. She appeared in numerous roles, most notably as Desdemona in Othello, her first appearance as a leading lady. She also got the occasional part on Leeds Radio and Granada Television, eventually appearing as a barmaid in 1970 in six episodes of the long-running soap opera Coronation Street.^[11]

In 1971, Sladen was in a two part story of Z-Cars.^[12][13] These two episodes of Z-Cars have since been wiped and are listed as missing episodes by the BBC's archive library.^[14] Then in 1972 she appeared in a play that eventually moved to London, and Sladen and Miller moved there as well. Her first television role in London was as a terrorist in an episode of Doomwatch, followed by guest roles in Z-Cars (again),^[15]Public Eye,^[16] Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em^[17] and Special Branch.^[18]

Sarah Jane Smith[link]

In 1973, Doctor Who actress Katy Manning, who was playing the Third Doctor's assistant Jo Grant opposite Jon Pertwee, was leaving the series; Z-Cars producer Ron Craddock gave Sladen an enthusiastic recommendation to Doctor Who producer Barry Letts.^[9] Sladen arrived at the audition not knowing it was for the new companion role, and was amazed at Letts's thoroughness. She was introduced to Pertwee, whom she found intimidating at the time. As she chatted with Letts and Pertwee, each time she turned to look at one of them the other would signal a thumbs-up.^[19] The role of Sarah Jane Smith was originally given to comic actress April Walker, but allegedly during rehearsals for debut story The Time Warrior doubts over the pairing of Walker and Pertwee surfaced and the part was re-cast to Sladen.^[20]

She stayed on Doctor Who for three-and-a-half seasons, alongside Pertwee as the Third Doctor and Tom Baker as the Fourth.^[9] She returned to the character of Sarah Jane Smith on several occasions. In 1981, new Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner asked her to return to the series to ease the transition between Tom Baker and new Doctor Peter Davison. She declined but accepted his second offer of doing a pilot for a spin-off series called K-9 and Company, co-starring K-9, the robot dog from Doctor Who. However, the pilot was not picked up for a series. Two years later Sladen appeared in the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors.

She reprised the role in the 1993 Children in Need special Dimensions in Time, and in the 1995 independently produced video Downtime alongside former co-star Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield. This was her last on-screen appearance as Sarah Jane Smith for some time.

Sladen played Sarah Jane in several audio plays. Two of them were produced for BBC Radio, The Paradise of Death (Radio 5, 1993), and The Ghosts of N-Space (Radio 2, 1996), together with Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney. In 1997 Sladen won Hall Of Fame Actress in Cult TV Awards^[21] Big Finish Productions produced two series of Sarah Jane Smith audio adventures set in the present day, released in 2002 and 2006. Miller appeared in the story Ghost Town. Her daughter Sadie appeared in the audios.

In later years, Sladen had also participated re-visiting several classic Doctor Who serials on DVD in doing audio commentaries and interviews (in the stories she starred in), but as of 2008 she stated in an interview that she was no longer doing them due to "contractual reasons with 2entertain".^[22]

Following the successful revival of Doctor Who in 2005, Sladen guest starred as Sarah Jane in "School Reunion", an episode of the 2006 series, along with David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Sladen worked a lot of the characterisation herself - in the lead-up to the broadcast of "School Reunion" she was quoted in the Daily Mirror as saying: "Sarah Jane used to be a bit of a cardboard cut-out. Each week it used to be, 'Yes Doctor, no Doctor', and you had to flesh your character out in your mind — because if you didn't, no one else would." She also spoke favourably of the characterisation in the new series.^[23] Sladen won best guest appearance in the annual Cult TV Awards ^[24]

Following her successful appearance in the series, Sladen later starred in The Sarah Jane Adventures, a Doctor Who spin-off focusing on Sarah Jane, produced by BBC Wales for CBBC and created by Russell T. Davies. A 60-minute special aired on New Year's Day 2007, with a 10-episode series commencing broadcast in September 2007, and a second 12-episode series was broadcast in late 2008. The programme won a Royal Television Society 2010 award for Best Children's Drama.^[25] Sladen also read original audio stories on CD for The Sarah Jane Adventures,^[15] which were released in November 2007: The Glittering Storm and The Thirteenth Stone. This was the first time that BBC Audiobooks had commissioned new content for exclusive release on audio.^[26] Further pairs of audio stories were released every year until 2010, all read again by Sladen.^[26]

Sladen appeared in the final two episodes of Doctor Who’s 2008 series (season 4) finale "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End" and was credited in the title sequence of both episodes.^[27] Her final appearance in Doctor Who was a cameo in the concluding part of "The End of Time", Tennant's last episode as the Doctor.^[28] Just before her death, Sladen had also been interested in being involved in the Doctor Who Fourth Doctor Big Finish series.^[29]

Other work[link]

While Sladen was in Doctor Who, she attended various public events to publicise the programme. Following her departure, she largely stopped attending related events as she felt it could be seen as bad manners to the new cast.^[30]

After Doctor Who, she returned to Liverpool with her husband and performed in a series of plays. This included a two-hander with Miller in Mooney and his Caravans. Notable appearances following that include a two-year stint as a presenter for the children's programme Stepping Stones, a lead role with Miller playing her husband in ITV drama Send In the Girls, a BBC Play for Today, a role as a stand-up comic's spouse in Take My Wife, and a small part in the movie Silver Dream Racer as a bank secretary in 1980, only her second film appearance.^[31]

In 1981, former Doctor Who producer Barry Letts cast her as the female lead in the BBC Classics production of Gulliver in Lilliput. The character of Lady Flimnap was written for Sladen, and she said it was her favourite role. She continued to appear in various television adverts and in another Letts production, Alice in Wonderland (playing the Dormouse).^[32]

After the birth of her daughter Sadie in 1985, Sladen went into semi-retirement, placing her family first, but finding time for the occasional television appearance.^[33]

In 1991, she starred as Alexa opposite Colin Baker in The Stranger audio adventure The Last Mission for BBV Audio. Sladen also appeared in a Bernice Summerfield audio drama, Kate Orman's Walking to Babylon. Following the audio production of The Paradise of Death in 1993, Sladen restarted her regular public appearances in the United Kingdom. In 1995, she played Dr Pat Hewland in 4 episodes of Peak Practice. In 1996, she played Sophie in Faith in the Future, and appeared in 15 episodes of the BBC schools programme Numbertime, which was repeated annually for around ten years. This was her last television acting appearance until the 2006 Doctor Who episode "School Reunion". In 2008–09, Sladen appeared in a panto production of Peter Pan at the Theatre Royal Windsor, playing Mrs. Darling and a beautiful mermaid.^[34]

Sladen's last fan event was at the British Film Institute on 12 October 2010, where there was a special showing of The Death Of The Doctor, followed by a Q&A session. Her last public appearance was at the EA British Academy Children's Awards on 28 November 2010.

Autobiography[link]

Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography was released posthumously on 7 November 2011 by Aurum Press Ltd.^[35] The book was launched at 'The Doctor Who Experience', Kensington Olympia on 26 November 2011, in the presence of Brian Miller, Sadie Miller, Tom Baker and Terrance Dicks. The BBC released an audio CD version of the book, read by fellow Doctor Who alum Caroline John, on 1 December 2011.^[36]

Personal life[link]

Sladen married actor Brian Miller in 1968 in Liverpool.^[37] Their daughter, Sadie, appeared alongside Sladen in the 1993 documentary, Thirty Years in the TARDIS, wearing a replica of the Andy Pandy overalls Sladen wore in The Hand of Fear.^[38]

Death[link]

Sladen died early on 19 April 2011,^[39] after having been diagnosed with cancer at the end of February the same year.^[40][41][42] Sladen's death was reported on the BBC 1 Ten O'Clock News, and the front page of the Daily Mirror, the Sun and the Liverpool Echo. The first episode of series six of Doctor Who, "The Impossible Astronaut", was aired on the Saturday following Sladen's death; the episode opened with a screen dedicating the episode to the memory of Elisabeth Sladen. Directly after, a special programme called My Sarah Jane: A Tribute to Elisabeth Sladen was aired on CBBC.^[43] The Hand of Fear was also shown on BBC Four as a tribute.^[44] At the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, during the film clips of people who had died in the past year, Sladen was the final person to be shown.^[45] Singer-songwriter Talis Kimberley wrote a tribute song titled Goodnight, Sarah​-​Jane^[46]. Tom Baker paid tribute to Sladen on his official website.^[47]

Filmography[link]

Television[link]

Personal appearances[link]