Whatever happened to Saturday morning kids TV?

At approximately 1215 on Saturday 17th April 1993, after 180 editions, Going Live swung its pants for the last time, marking what many middle-aged nostalgics consider to be the high water mark of Saturday morning kids TV. I was there that day in Studio 7 at Television Centre, as a young Assistant Producer on the programme. Many of my fellow nostalgics often ask me “why don’t you do Saturday morning shows for kids anymore”?

In the faraway days of three television channels (i.e. before 1982), there were generally two types of children’s TV devotees. Swap Shop or Tiswas? Blue Peter or Magpie? BBC or ITV? Most kids were on one side or the other.

Quiz teams still argue about the first Saturday morning show; although viewers in ATV land could watch Tiswas from 1974, the first to be shown nationally was the BBC’sSwap Shop in 1975. The Multicoloured Swap Shop, to use its full title, was the first live TV show where viewers could regularly phone in and speak to their heroes and other stars of the day. Producer Rose Gill, who created the show, and presenter Noel Edmonds brought the first real interactivity to our screens, 20 years before the Internet appeared in people’s homes.

After 146 editions, Swap Shop became Saturday Superstore, which was the same sort of thing; a Radio 1 DJ presenter and pop stars of the day and other guests answering questions on the phone, all set in the format of a department store. Mike Read was the General Manager, Keith Chegwin was the delivery boy and Sarah Greene from Blue Peter joined as the Saturday Girl.

When the Superstore shut its door for the last time in 1987, the third, and many say the best, incarnation of the 3-hour pop, chat and prizes format was born – Going Live. Phillip Schofield moved over from the CBBC Broom cupboard with his trusty sidekick Gordon T Gopher, and Sarah Greene was promoted from Superstore’s Saturday Girl to co presenter. Trevor and Simon provided the comedy. Over six series, Going Live entertained and delighted millions of viewers – not all of them children!

The presenters, Trevor and Simon, and guests including Cher, Les Dawson, Phil Collins and even Sir Georg Solti, meant the show appealed just as much to mums and dads, and anyone else who didn’t fancy going down the shops or washing the car. Having grown up obsessed with Swap Shop, I was proud and thrilled to be a member of the production team.

In those days, BBC One and ITV on a Saturday morning were watched by huge numbers of people – which meant that things that happened on these shows were talked about on Monday at school or at work.

Live and Kicking followed, but the sleeping beast of ITV Saturday mornings was beginning to stir in the form of Ant and Dec and SMTV Live! This would eventually steal the BBC’s long held Saturday crown and mark the beginning of the end of the “classic” three hour Saturday morning show.

SMTV wasn’t the only new thing going on in British TV in 1998. That year Sky Digital launched, and within a few short years, the cosy duopoly of the BBC and “the other side”, was transformed into a world of wall-to-wall children’s television – all you could eat cartoons and comedy, anytime, any place. This huge explosion in choice meant that never again would any channel attain the huge audiences that Going Live and its forebears had seen. This also meant that children’s Saturday morning TV – on all channels – was no longer the national talking point it had once been. BBC and ITV children’s programmes now aimed more squarely at children, and less at the broad family audience they had once attracted. Dick and Dom in da Bungalow’s success epitomised this.

So what did happen to Saturday morning kids TV? Well, in some ways, nothing. It’s still thriving, just on channels adults may not watch. The CBBC channel has a packed schedule of shows every day of the week and live Saturday morning TV remains an important part of the mix. Last year, Blue Peter's Big Olympic Tour took to the road, bringing an action-packed look at all things Games-related to kids across the UK; and Live n Deadly let children and adults get up close and personal with a show–stealing cast of creatures as well as their favourite presenters. This week we're announcing another live interactive Saturday morning series which will go out and about throughout the UK and hopefully inspire our audience to get up and 'do something less boring instead', as the fondly remembered Why Don't You used to proclaim.

This 'family moment' telly isn't just confined to Saturday mornings either. Our Big Fab Fridays, including magazine show Friday Download and the ever-popular Sam and Mark's Big Friday Wind Up, have proven extremely popular and are real testament as to why these formats are still important to - and most importantly enjoyed by – our viewers.

Whilst children’s viewing habits and choices have changed, so have everyone else’s – so a bit like the children of the Victorian upper classes, Saturday morning TV is out of sight, and often out of mind. Unless you’re a child that is, in which case, it’s live and kicking.

Joe Godwin is Director of BBC Children's.

There's a selection of pictures and screenshots from Going Live at the About The BBC Flickr account.