Children behave

And catching up from the weekend, Catherine Bennett, in the Observer, is hopping mad about the cancellation of Go4It (children's programming on Radio 4) and the performance of Mark Damazer (Controller, Radio 4) and Richard Deverell (Controller Children's). She reflects my earlier post about the risks of using an inattentive audience as a deciding factor in programming.

Her conclusion:".... if anyone has trained children to believe that entertainment is relentless noise and stupidity it is the BBC itself, which has taken the opportunity, in the absence of any terrestrial competition, to enforce the Clarkson aesthetic on everyone over five. Though there is little evidence of exertion on either side, both Damazer and Deverell suggest that there is no point in the BBC trying to offer intelligent programmes which might be less than hypnotic to the mass of children. But to what part of the broadcasting firmament might this argument for idiocy not apply? If the BBC can't offer something better, on PSB principle, for children, you begin to wonder what it is for."