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		<!-- END ODIOGO LISTEN BUTTON v2.5.7 (WP) -->{"id":72,"date":"2007-10-12T09:20:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-12T09:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slewth.wordpress.com\/2007\/10\/12\/seeing-things\/"},"modified":"2007-10-12T09:20:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-12T09:20:00","slug":"seeing-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slewth.co.uk\/blog\/2007\/10\/12\/seeing-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing Things"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\t\t<!-- BEGIN ODIOGO LISTEN BUTTON v2.5.7 (WP) -->\r\n\t\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\" language=\"javascript\">\r\n\t\t<!--\r\n\t\t\/\/ ODIOGO_START:do_NOT_remove_this_comment\r\n\t\tshowOdiogoReadNowButton (\"687068\", \"Seeing Things\", \"72\", 290, 55);\r\n\t\t\/\/ -->\r\n\t\t<\/script>\r\n\t\t<br\/>\r\n\t\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\" language=\"javascript\">\r\n\t\t<!--\r\n\t\tshowInitialOdiogoReadNowFrame (\"687068\", \"72\", 290, 0);\r\n\t\t\/\/ ODIOGO_END:do_NOT_remove_this_comment\r\n\t\t\/\/ -->\r\n\t\t<\/script>\r\n\t\t<!-- END ODIOGO LISTEN BUTTON v2.5.7 (WP) -->\r\n\t\t\n<p>I&#8217;ve recently picked up a copy of Oliver Postgate&#8217;s autobiography &quot;Seeing Things&quot; on ebay.&nbsp; &nbsp;Seeing&nbsp; Things is currently out of print, but has plenty to say about the current state of Children&#8217;s Educational Television, an area I&#8217;m currently writing about in support of a piece on wider Educational Technology.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Postgate was instrumental in creating some of the most memorably children&#8217;s television of the 1970 and 80s.&nbsp; I say so because I remember it, having been a small child at the time.&nbsp; On the subject of the state of current children&#8217;s programming Postgates own website has a short essay &#8211; &quot;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.oliverpostgate.co.uk\/archive1.html\">Does Children&#8217;s Television Matter?<\/a>&quot;.&nbsp; This cites commercial styles of programming and American research as fundamental catalysts for the decline of the genre.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Then, in 1987 the BBC let us know that in future all<br \/>\n&quot;programming&quot; was to be judged by what they called its &quot;audience ratings&quot;.<br \/>\nFurthermore, we were told, some U.S. researchers had established that in order<br \/>\nto retain its audience (and its share of the burgeoning merchandising market)<br \/>\nevery children&#8217;s programme had to have a &#8216;hook&#8217;, ie, a startling incident to<br \/>\nhold the attention, every few seconds. As our films did not fit this category<br \/>\nthey were deemed not fit to be shown by the BBC any more. End of story &#8211; not<br \/>\nonly for Peter and me &#8211; we had had a very good innings &#8211; but also for many of<br \/>\nthe shoe-string companies that had been providing scrumptious programmes for<br \/>\nwhat is now seen as &#8216;the golden age of children&#8217;s television&#8217;. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"bigarial\">Those days<br \/>\nare long gone. Today making films for children&#8217;s television has become very big<br \/>\nbusiness requiring huge capital investment, far beyond the reach of small<br \/>\ncompanies, and that has inevitably brought with it a particular poverty from<br \/>\nwhich we never suffered.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"bigarial\">Until the next edition of &quot;Seeing Things&quot; this essay is a touchstone in view of current debates on Children&#8217;s Television programming.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\r\n\t\t<!-- BEGIN ODIOGO LISTEN BUTTON v2.5.7 (WP) -->\r\n\t\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\" language=\"javascript\">\r\n\t\t<!--\r\n\t\t\/\/ ODIOGO_START:do_NOT_remove_this_comment\r\n\t\tshowOdiogoReadNowButton (\"687068\", \"Seeing Things\", \"72\", 290, 55);\r\n\t\t\/\/ -->\r\n\t\t<\/script>\r\n\t\t<br\/>\r\n\t\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\" language=\"javascript\">\r\n\t\t<!--\r\n\t\tshowInitialOdiogoReadNowFrame (\"687068\", \"72\", 290, 0);\r\n\t\t\/\/ ODIOGO_END:do_NOT_remove_this_comment\r\n\t\t\/\/ -->\r\n\t\t<\/script>\r\n\t\t<!-- END ODIOGO LISTEN BUTTON v2.5.7 (WP) -->\r\n\t\t\n<p>I&#8217;ve recently picked up a copy of Oliver Postgate&#8217;s autobiography &quot;Seeing Things&quot; on ebay.&nbsp; &nbsp;Seeing&nbsp; Things is currently out of print, but has plenty to say about the current state of Children&#8217;s Educational Television, an area I&#8217;m currently writing about in support of a piece on wider Educational Technology.&nbsp; Postgate was instrumental in creating some [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slewth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slewth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slewth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slewth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slewth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/slewth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slewth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slewth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slewth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}