Kids' TV builds a better foundation

You may be forgiven if you don't know Anne Wood's name. Her biggest fans, and she has millions worldwide, are just learning to pronounce their own names.

Flush from the huge success (financial if not critical) of her "Teletubbies" show, Ms. Wood launches her latest creation stateside next week. "Boohbah," a show for children ages 3 to 6, airs next Monday on PBS stations across the US (it debuted in Britain this past April).

This sophomore effort is being watched closely by critics and industry observers, a fact not lost on Wood. She acknowledges that her latest show offers a high-profile window into the good, the bad, and the challenging in the world of children's television today.

"Children's audiences aren't valued," she says by phone from her production office in England, "and that's true everywhere, not just the United States. The shorter the child in stature, the less the budget they're given for programming."

Compare the average $1 million to $2 million price tag for an hour of prime-time programming. Even animation, the most expensive children's programming, costs roughly half that. Wood, owner and creative director of Ragdoll, a production firm, sees the rise of large media conglomerates as a big challenge to quality programming - especially for children. "If ['Boohbah'] is successful," she ventures, perhaps "it will be the kind of thing that encourages people to take more risks."

Most creative folks in the world of children's TV agree that children's television is at the bottom of the programming totem pole for networks these days. NBC has left the business altogether, turning over its Saturday morning slot to Discovery Kids programs, while ABC runs cartoons courtesy of the Disney Channel, and CBS airs Nickelodeon reruns.

But, perhaps surprisingly, most also agree that, overall, children's programming is in the best shape it's been in for a long time - if for no other reason than the sheer volume of choice. Twenty years ago, children had a handful of shows to choose from, mostly on PBS. Nickelodeon, the first channel devoted to children's programming, launched in 1979. Today, multiple channels are dedicated to children's shows around the clock.

"Kid's programming is better," says Marjorie Kaplan, executive vice- president of Discovery Kids. She points to a shift in program development as the biggest reason for her positive assessment.

"That's due in part to one of the things that I think is the biggest change [in the past decade], which is that producers and networks listen to kids, they constantly talk to kids, they get constant feedback from kids."

When Ms. Kaplan began her TV career two decades ago, advertisers were the main source of information about children, she says. That's not the case today. This attention to children's desires is in large part driven by the ferocious level of competition that has blossomed over just the past decade.

"It's now, 'all kids all the time, 24/7,' " says Deborah Forte, president of Scholastic Entertainment, an independent production company. The volume of children's cable programming has exploded in the past 10 years. In addition, she notes, the industry has gone global. "We see a lot of international influences now in our country on kids' programming, shows migrating from other countries to the states, which was really not the case 10 years ago." The British "Boohbah" is one example, not to mention "Bob the Builder" and Japan's animé-inspired cartoons such as "Yu-Gi-Oh."

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