loading . . . 1971: Something for the Children | Tuesday Documentary | BBC Archive "The child has become, in the jargon of the business world, a major consumer."
Children now spend more than £125 million a year in pocket money and adults spend many times as much again on them. The enormous growth of the children's leisure market has had unforeseen consequences on three main industries - publishing, toys and television.
The most dramatic has been in the toy industry where the Father Christmas image has been decisively put out into the snow. Books boom. Television finds the strings of its conscience tweaked by puppets - the ones that go into those series that children can watch on the screen and at the same time into the many lines of character merchandise, from soap to jigsaws, that they can buy or cry for in the shops.
Tuesday Documentary speaks to some of the movers and shakers of the British toy, publishing and television industries.
At the major toy industry exhibitions - the British International Toy Fair in Brighton and the Harrogate Toy Fair - we hear from Norman Stephens of Bluebell Toys (producers of Miss Happy Heart dolls), Leslie Smith of Lesney (producers of Matchbox cars), and Bob Fieldhouse of Spirograph, about the opportunities and challenges facing the British toy industry.
What of the publishing industry? Children's fiction is still big business - 1,700 titles are published every year. Leon Garfield, the Chairman of the children's branch of the Author's Society, and an established children's author in his own right, considers why an author would choose to write books for children in such a competitive market. Alan Garner is one such author, he doesn't have much affinity with children in real life, but finds them to be the most attentive and intelligent readers, and the most rewarding to write for. Technology has also played a part in the current boom in children's literature - reductions in the price of paperback production and colour printing now enable publishers to produce books at pocket money-friendly prices.
Finally, we look at children's television, which has arguably become the biggest of all the children's leisure industries. Biddy Baxter and Edward Barnes - the editor and producer respectively - of Blue Peter, the BBC's flagship children's tv show, discuss the power of the television medium. Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin of Smallfilms - the independent animation company behind hits like The Clangers and Pogles' Wood - demonstrate their production processes at their Kent studio (a barn), and discuss the benefits that come from being both independent and small.
The Clangers and Pogles' Wood have spawned all manner of spin off material - comic books, jigsaws, books and games - what the industry refers to as "character merchandising." Character merchandising may seem like an awkward fit for a public service broadcaster like the BBC, but the corporation has been licensing characters since the early days of Doctor Who. BBC Enterprises earns £100,000 a year from character merchandising - isn't this a conflict of interests? Dennis Scuse of BBC Enterprises defends the practice.
Gordon Murray is behind a trio of popular stop-motion series: Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley - sometimes referred to as the Trumptonshire Trilogy. Murray had character merchandising and worldwide sales in mind when he was creating his shows, as he was aware that the money he received from the BBC would barely cover the cost of production. Murray's characters now adorn over 40 different products around the world, and have netted him a tidy profit.
The greatest British success story in children's television, however, is Thunderbirds - created by the husband and wife team of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Sylvia details how they turned their marionettes into millions.
Clip taken from Tuesday Documentary: Something for the Children, originally broadcast on BBC One, 9 November, 1971.
00:00 Introduction
02:18 Toys
14:48 Children's Books
20:22 Books on the box
22:39 Children's Television
25:47 Behind the scenes of The Clangers at Smallfilms
32:00 Character merchandising
33:55 Gordon Murray on the Trumptonshire Trilogy
38:03 Sylvia Anderson on the Thunderbirds phenomenon
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