Abstract

This is the first academic history of children’s radio in Britain. It profiles Children’s Hour, the BBC’s first daily radio programme for children on local, regional and national networks. The study offers original knowledge by examining unpublished material from the BBC Written Archives. It traces how the BBC conceptualised, constructed and broadcast to an unmapped child audience, in the absence of official listener research until 1939. The 1920s was an experimental period; the BBC’s 19 radio stations produced individual shows for children, involving them through social activities, listening clubs and fundraising-opportunities that were never extended to adults. By 1933, the BBC had been reorganised into fewer Regional Centres and London; the clubs closed, and the number of children’s programmes halved. The BBC took child audiences very seriously, granting them a daily radio slot for more than 40 years. But senior management often failed to strategise or provide producers with a consistent children’s broadcasting policy across the BBC. There was confusion about whether Children’s Hour should educate or entertain, and the target listener was not profiled definitively until 1942. Reith’s public service mission meant bringing the best of everything to a national BBC audience from 1926. London was deliberately prioritised as the UK’s foremost centre of culture and production. The London Children’s Hour team prioritised a national child audience and clashed with regional colleagues who argued their child listeners had different needs. In the absence of any consistent policy, two different models of the child audience emerged by 1934, reflecting internal divisions at the BBC:
(1) The Participatory Child Listener was constructed by local/regional teams. This child-centred approach mobilised children as active agents: voters, performers, contributors and fundraisers. An informal presentation style was favoured, with children being included in programmes, even as amateurs. Regional women producers later championed children’s voices, particularly working-class listeners and wartime refugees.
(2) The Non-Participatory Child Listener was constructed by London, whose adult-centred approach led to its show being professionalised in 1926, with a formal presentation style adopted. Children’s direct involvement in London programmes was reduced from1933, unless they were training to be professional artistes.

By 1937, Children’s Hour had become a shared space, as all the Regions and London pooled their content for British audiences for the first time. This caused further disagreements over accents, talent and standards. A decisive, BBC-wide policy was approved in 1942, confirming that Children’s Hour aimed to train children to become “good citizens and loyal subjects of the Empire”. The topic of children’s radio has been under-researched compared to children’s television. This study asks: how did the BBC construct the child radio listener? What role did children and women play in Children’s Hour? How did the BBC serve the first generation of mass media child consumers in the twentieth century? Children’s Hour offers a microcosm of wider tensions at the BBC during twenty years of tumultuous change. This study expands our understanding of the BBC and repositions the child listener at the centre of broadcasting histories, after a century of exclusion.