So angry that cbeebies radio 7 morning hour is getting the axe

[alittlebitwibbly]

Hi,

I've just read on the BBC website that the 6am - 8am cbeebies radio 7 slot is getting the chop and i'm livid. My dc love listening to this show and I for one think it must be far better to fuel their imagination through radio rather than television (although we are a Peppa Pig loving household too). Do any other mumsnetter's feel the same?

x

I'm a big fan of BBC Radio (4 mostly, but occasionally 7) however, I don't think the children's slot got all that many listeners. There have been several attempts down the years to get children engaged in speech radio - anyone remember Barney and Go4it? - and they've all flopped.

but radio 7 Cbeebies wasn't advertised (eg on cbeebies telly) It was the only high quality radio for children available (albeit for a short time slot) and I deeply miss it in the mornings as a way of keeping my DS (4) at the table in the kitchen when he would eat a lot more breakfast than he does in front of a telly in the sitting room

You and Yours on radio 4 just interviewed Sir Michael Lyons and he was asked about this- he said listening figures were too low and that Cbeebies radio has been replaced with shows suitable for all the family.

1. Cbeebies on the radio was never advertised on the Cbeebies television channel the way the web content is.
2. at the moment radio4 extra has crime drama scheduled at breakfast time, I don't know about Sir Michael's children, but my child is too young to be exposed to tales about murder with scary music at breakfast time.

I hate the new radio 7(now 4 extra) format. The children's slot has gone as has the crime catch up hour on Saturdays. It would be fine it they had made way for new cutting edge shows, but it seems to be that all we have instead is more repeats of dreadful comedy shows.

Children's radio is really random - there's a 2 a.m. CBeebies slot on Radio 4 DAB (in the middle of what would otherwise be the World Service). I can't imagine why that's there: I've never heard it advertised anywhere and I can't think there's much demand for CBeebies radio at that time. And it drives me mad when I'm up feeding DS and want the radio on and have to retune.

Petsville - they've often had schools material on R4 DAB overnight, so this might be a variation during the holidays, but I've never seen where details of such programming is listed (then again, I've not been looking for it, as I find BBC World Service generally quite dreary and switch to anything else when I find it by accident, so don't take an interest in R4 schedules from 0100-0520).

I'd never heard of it till this thread so no wonder no one listened, probably no one knows it's there.

It was very true to say that Radio 7 had hardly any publicity on R4, and when visiting my sister's 'holiday home' I found a bedroom TV had Freeview but one had to select an option to be able to even jump through the radio channels.

For well over 15 years, the BBC has had radio service on satellite with Sky and others and although in the early days it was only mono and 'test broadcasting' (with Radio 5 playing a loop whenever there was sport on, telling listeners they could not play it via satellite), it has been the case that in TV shops and most literature regarding Satellite or Freeview, the fact radio services are included is hardly mentioned, or definitely not given equal billing, so little wonder that the 'digital' channels have not been prominent.

R5 Sports Extra gets a lot of mention, which, considering FiveLive is on rubbishy 'AM' (Medium Wave), and the Sports Extra is on DAB / digital, means there is bound to have been interest simply to be able to hear the sound on FiveLive without the crackles and buzzes of AM...

6 Music had fewer listeners until there was the rumour of closure. 1Xtra may be popular with teens and twenties, and with sessions where 1FM and 1Xtra are linked, there must be plenty of promotion for 1Xtra, but there was hardly a mention of Radio 7, or before it was called that, BBC 7.

It was alone, playing comedy from the 50s to the 90s, and drama too, of course. In the last few years they have been funding new material exclusive to the station, mostly tied in with comedy, at Edinburgh and other events, and there were moans about the switching to childrens material from 0500-0800 (some of it had been in the afternoon and it had been running later, up to 0900, I think), but there was little or no mention of what was on BBC 7/ Radio 7, on R4, the most obvious source of listeners, even when they rebroadcast the Friday 18:30 comedy shows on R7 2 weeks later. Even Feedback, in answer to some question about lack of podcasts, didn't mention the rebroadcasts (handy if one was away on holiday for 2 weeks as it made it easy to enjoy the 'missed' items using iPlayer).

I think there are far too many promotions on R4 (2 to 4 per hour, at least most hours from 05:20 to 00:45) yet they mentioned more about what was on TV, or paying the TV Licence fee, than they did about their 'sister channel', didn't they !! Daft planning at the Beeb, for sure.