BBC FUND NEW DIGITAL CHANNELS

THE BBC have revealed the money to supplement their proposed new children’s channels will in part come from the increase in the licence fee earlier this year.
The BBC Board of Governors have agreed that they should invest some of the new licence fee money in priority programme areas this financial year, up to March 2001.
From April 2001, the BBC plan to spend an extra £95 million of the new licence fee money on BBC One and BBC Two. They also plan to spend an extra £100 million in that year on the new digital channels, BBC Four, BBC Three and the two new Children’s channels. In the year following this will increase to £140 million.
The BBC have proposed a pre-school channel for children under six years old and their parents. The BBC hopes to provide the first digital channel with new programmes based on storytelling, music, ‘make and do’, puzzles, factual and natural history, together with established programmes including ‘The Tweenies’, ‘Postman Pat’ and ‘Noddy’.
The second new digital children’s channel they aim to launch will be directed towards older children, offering a wider range of new, engaging and stimulating programmes across the range of drama, entertainment, news, sport, factual, science and technology. New interactive developments of established BBC favourites like ‘Blue Peter and ‘Newsround’ are also being planned.
The BBC plan to make these programmes available to BBC One and BBC Two in order to ensure children in all homes, not just those with digital television would be able to benefit from these new programmes.
The application will be sent to the Secretary of State in the near future for his approval on the introduction of these new channels. Following this the Secretary of State will then open the application for industry consultation. The BBC expects to be informed on the decision whether or not the channels have been approved some time around February next year. If the application is successful the BBC aim to launch the new channels in Autumn 2001.
(CMcL)