Books need to be read allowed to children.” “We think children today are only going to be interested in screens and it’s not true. “We all know that a child reading for the joy of it is more likely to be successful, more likely to vote and own your own home,” she said, citing a recent survey that found that 100 per cent of children said they would like to be read a bedtime story. As the seven to 12 audience rapidly moves away from TV and towards digital, we will transition CBBC to iPlayer.”īattling the rival attractions of YouTube and streaming platforms, CBBC now reaches just 14 per cent of children aged 6-12 on TV each week, a steep decline from 27 per cent in 2015.Īlthough a keen supporter of the BBC’s children’s channels, Ms Cowell, who signs off as Children’s Laureate this month after three years in the post, said exposure to the written word at a young age has the most powerful impact on a child’s life chances. The BBC promised that the CBBC TV channel will “remain for at least three years. The DCMS has asked the BBC to explain how universal access to CBBC will be maintained.

The free-to-air CBBC channel also reaches households who cannot afford to subscribe to Disney + and Netflix. The Children’s Media Foundation has expressed concern that young people in households without high-speed internet access could be deprived of programming. Sir Lenny Henry said that that moving dramas such as Dame Jacqueline Wilson’s Tracy Beaker series online will make it harder for UK youngsters to find “stories about themselves”.

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