Gigglebiz Sketches

Commissioned sketches written for CBeebies TV show Gigglebiz, Series 5, in which Lost Pirate and Rapids Johnson are running characters. Sketch 1. Lost Pirate loves planks so much that he struggles to choose a new plank for his ship's deck. Sketch 2. Lost Pirate is lost in a Garden Centre. When a member of staff waters the plants with a sprayer, he’s convinced it’s the spray of the sea calling to him. Sketch 3. Lost Pirate spots a gnome ornament fishing on a little island in a Garden Centre pond and thinks it’s stranded there. He insists a perplexed employee rescues the gnome. Sketch 4. Lost Pirate spots a gnome ornament fishing on a little island in a Garden Centre pond and thinks it’s stranded there. He insists a perplexed employee rescues the gnome. Sketch 5. Rapids Johnson always tries and fails to get a photograph of a bear in the woods. Rapids tries to amuse himself in the woods with a bear flicker book. Unbeknown to him, a real bear is watching a movie on a pop-up woodland cinema screen

The BBC's role in the changing production ecology of preschool television in Britain

CBeebies, the BBC’s brand for young children, has become a successful public service undertaking, lauded by parents and policy makers alike. Nevertheless, it operates in a complex and highly competitive "ecology," where recent funding crises in commercial television have left CBeebies as the main commissioner of U.K.–originated content. Having outlined the broader industry context of CBeebies, this article examines changes in its organization, target audience, scheduling and commissioning practices, and relationship with the BBC’s commercial subsidiary, BBC Worldwide, to explain how wider commercial, cultural, and technological forces have impacted the Corporation’s strategies for preschool content. It suggests that growing pressures to locate funding for "fewer, bigger, better" programs may have an adverse impact on the range of content and sources of supply