Children's radio

The earliest children's radio broadcasts occurred in 1921 in the United States{{cite web|url=https://otrr.org/FILES/Times_Archive_pdf/2021_05%20SeptOct.pdf|title=Old Radio Times (September–October 2021)|access-date=15 March 2025}}{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/asbury-park-press/102766971/|title=Editor’s Comment|newspaper=Asbury Park Press |date=December 16, 1921|page=9|access-date=15 March 2025}} and 1922 in the United Kingdom.{{cite book|last=Crisell|first=Andrew|title=An Introductory History of British Broadcasting|access-date=2008-12-05|year=2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0-415-24792-6|page=20|chapter=The first programmes|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KwzYIYCE4jsC&pg=PA20|quote=Programmes for the young date from the very beginning of radio: Children's Hour originated in Birmingham in 1922}} Other countries, including Norway,{{cite web|access-date=11 January 2019|date=7 December 2004|language=nb-NO|surname=NRK|title=Tre timer med Lørdagsbarnetimen|url=https://www.nrk.no/arkiv/artikkel/tre-timer-med-lordagsbarnetimen-1.1626668 |work=NRK}} Sweden, Australia{{cite news |url=https://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/dont-touch-dial-childrens-radio-club-badges-and-pins|title=Don’t touch that dial! Children’s radio club badges and pins|website=State Library of South Australia|author=Denise Chapman|access-date=15 March 2025}} and Japan{{cite news|url=https://www2.nhk.or.jp/archives/movies/?id=D0009062095_00000|title=Infant Time|website=NHK|access-date=15 March 2025}} would follow suit.

File:1922 Man in the Moon bedtime story poster.JPEG

The first US radio broadcasts of material written for children is thought to have been the Man in the Moon stories by Josephine Lawrence.Austin C. Lescarboura, Radio for Everybody: What the Radio Telephone Service Means and How it Can Be Applied in the Home and Business. Scientific American 1922, p. 166. This was first aired around October 1921, on WJZ Newark (now known as WABC)Ben Gross, I Looked and I Listened. 1954. and consisted of fairy tales told by William F.B. McNeary. These started off a wave of similar series, hosted by various “Aunties” and “Uncles”, aired around both the 5pm-6pm and Saturday morning timeslots.Pat Browne,The guide to United States popular culture. Popular Press, 2001, p.611. {{ISBN|0-87972-821-3 }} From the 1930s however, adventure serials such as Little Orphan Annie, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy and Captain Midnight became the main attraction, though fairytale re-enactments such as those from Let's Pretend continued to be popular.{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/radio/Juvenile-action-and-adventure-series |publisher=Britannica |title=Juvenile action and adventure series|access-date=15 March 2025}}

By the 1950s and 1960s, television had largely replaced radio as the predominant medium of children’s entertainment; a resurgence began in the mid-1980s with WNYC's Kids America,{{cite web|url=http://www.peabodyawards.com/award-profile/small-things-considered |title=Small Things Considered |publisher=Peabody Awards |accessdate=16 March 2025}} the only nationally networked children’s radio series available at that time until Radio AAHS expanded from 1992.{{Cite web |last=Hulse |first=Jane |date=4 March 1993|title=FOR THE KIDS : Easy Listening : It's all fun, all the time, as 24-hour Radio AAHS broadcasts music, news and stories for the grade-school audience. |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-04-vl-463-story.html |access-date=14 June 2023|website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}} These were mainly made up of music, games and jokes,{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19870619&id=IpccAAAAIBAJ&sjid=cWQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6865,1908193 |newspaper=The Pittsburgh Press|title=If children's TV turns you off, try 'Kids America' on radio|author=Robert Bianco|via=Google News|date=19 June 1987 |accessdate=13 December 2021}} and AAHS would only be halted following a disastrous deal with The Walt Disney Company that led to the creation of Radio Disney in 1996.{{cite news|title=Did Radio Disney Steal Candy From A Startup? |url=http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may1998/nf80522b.htm|publisher=businessweek |date=22 May 1998 |access-date=2 June 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040317043038/http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may1998/nf80522b.htm |archive-date=17 March 2004}} Radio Disney would remain the only dominant network for two decades (barring those of satellites){{cite web|url=https://tedium.co/2023/06/14/radio-disney-childrens-radio-history/ |website=Tedium|title=Tuned Out|author=Ernie Smith|date=14 June 2023|accessdate=16 March 2025}} until its closure in 2021.

File:May Jenkin (or Elizabeth), 1952.jpg

Cecil Lewis, L. Stanton Jefferies, Rex Palmer and Arthur Burrows founded Children's Hour at the BBC in 1922,{{cite AV media|date=16 February 1983|title=In Front of the Children|type=television special|publisher=BBC One}} broadcast from 5-6pm. Originally run quite haphazardly, it would eventually become more organised, paving the way for a variety of programming: plays (the best known being regular features such as Toytown, Norman and Henry Bones and Jennings at School), talks by Stephen King-Hall and nature explorations including Zoo Man.{{cite web

|url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/download/GB%200898%20R11

|title=R11 Children’s Hour - BBC Written Archives

|access-date=10 March 2024}} These were sometimes populated with “Aunties” and “Uncles”, most notably Derek McCulloch, or “Uncle Mac”. 1954 saw the beginning of Children's Favourites, a programme dedicated to music. In 1964 Frank Gillard closed Children's Hour, replacing it with Story Time, which ended in 1967,{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/5bde4168354d4370ab5c4352bff58847 |title=Story Time - BBC Programme Index|date=29 September 1967|access-date=16 March 2025}} while Favourites persevered into the 1970s and 1980s as Junior Choice.{{cite web

|title= Flashbak Digital Collection

|access-date = 29 December 2014

|url=http://flashbak.com/from-bbc-childrens-favourites-to-captain-kangaroo-edward-whites-puffin-billy-kept-the-kids-delighted-3938/

}}

One series that lasted from the 1950s to the 1980s was Listen with Mother, aimed at a younger audience and consisting of nursery rhymes and stories.{{cite web

|title=Listen with Mother - History of the BBC

|access-date =16 March 2025

|url=https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/january/listen-with-mother

}} It was eventually succeeded by CBeebies Radio in 2007, originally broadcast on BBC Radio 7 before transferring to the internet and a station on the BBC Sounds app.{{Cite web|url=http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?order=asc&q=cbeebies&svc=9371564#search |title=Search Results – BBC Genome|publisher=BBC|access-date=21 July 2017}} In 2005, a digital radio station known as Fun Kids was opened,{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/jun/08/commercialradio.radio |title=New station bids for a chance to switch children on to radio|first=Meg|last=Carter|date=8 June 2005|newspaper=The Guardian|location=London}} lasting into the present day.

File:Portrett av Thorbjørn Egner - Fo30141603070073.jpg was responsible for Lørdagsbarnetimen’s legendary lyrics: “Now comes the children's hour (hush, hush, hush, be quiet as a mouse)”]]

1924 marked the beginning of Lørdagsbarnetimen ("The Saturday Children's Hour"), aired every Saturday until 2010, except for a period during World War II. Following said period, it was reinvented by Lauritz Johnson, who became Uncle Lauritz, presenting alongside Sonni Holtedahl Larsen (as Aunt Sonni). Perhaps the most well-known items of the series were Stompa, a Norwegian adaptation of the UK’s Jennings at School, and Barnetimeboka ("Children's Hour Book"), an original series involving an author writing the first chapter of a story finished by young listeners.{{cite web|access-date=16 March 2025|date=20 February 2003|language=nb-NO|surname=NRK|title=Fakta - Barnetimeøkene|url=https://www.nrk.no/arkiv/artikkel/fakta---barnetimebokene-1.2527655 |work=NRK}} By the 1950s, 98% of the country’s children were regularly listening to the programme.

Barnens brevlåda ("The Children's Letterbox") first aired in 1925, and by the time it ended in 1972, its 1,785 episodes made it the world’s longest-running radio series,Sven Jerring; Ett stycke radiohistoria, Nils-Olof Franzén, Bonniers, 1988, page 395 later superseded by the Swedish series Smoke Rings.{{cite web|url=http://wwwc.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/9911/18/smoke.html |title=Leif "Smoke Rings" Anderson är död|publisher=Aftonbladet|language=Swedish|date=18 November 1999|accessdate=5 April 2011}} It was broadcast by Sveriges Radio, who would go on to create many other shows, including Nicke Lilltroll,{{cite web|title=Klassikern: Nicke Lilltroll|url=https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/5339519 |website=Sveriges Radio|date=8 November 2012|access-date=23 September 2024}} Vi i femman,{{Cite radio|url=https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/1781906 |title=Om Vi i femman - Vi i femman|first=Sveriges|last=Radio|website=Sveriges Radio|accessdate=26 November 2020|archive-date=18 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210118111732/https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/1781906 |url-status=live}} and Gusten Grodslukare.{{Cite web|url=https://www.sverigesradio.se/p4/barn/vecka03.stm|title=Barnradion flyer|first=Sveriges|last=Radio|website=Sveriges Radio|accessdate=16 March 2025|archive-date=27 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927205316/https://www.sverigesradio.se/p4/barn/vecka03.stm |url-status=dead}}

Australian children’s radio first appeared around the late 1920s. Performances of the Toytown stories were aired every Thursday,The Golden Age of the Argonauts" by Rob Johnson pub. Hodder & Stoughton 1997 {{ISBN|978-0-7336-0528-4}} but in 1933 the country received one of its best-remembered original features: the Argonauts Club. First running until 1934, it was revived in 1941 and continued until 1972. It was, in many ways, similar to the UK’s Children's Hour, consisting of plays, music and talks, one of the best known being Ruth Park’s The Muddle-Headed Wombat.{{cite book|author=Richard Lane|title=The Golden Age of Australian Radio Drama 1923–1960}} Like Toytown, it only ended when the Argonauts Club itself closed in 1972. Due to fear of air raids during World War II, ABC Radio created Kindergarten of the Air in 1943, which remained popular after the war and into the 1960s.{{cite web|url=https://www.abc.net.au/kidslisten/kindergarten-of-the-air/9442750 |title=The best of Kindergarten of the Air|publisher=ABC|date=16 February 2018|accessdate=16 March 2025}}

In Japan, Children's Time was first broadcast in 1925 by NHK, and would continue through multiple name changes until 1972.{{cite news|url=https://www2.nhk.or.jp/archives/movies/?id=D0009060002_00000 |title=Children’s Time|website=NHK|access-date=17 March 2025}} Infant Time, which continues to this day, was first broadcast in 1927 on NHK (albeit irregularly). It would become more organised from 1933, and consists of nursery rhymes and stories for preschoolers.

During the 1950s and 1960s, The Tale of the New Countries would present stories by Toshio Kitamura, including Swan Knight{{cite news|url=https://www2.nhk.or.jp/archives/movies/?id=D0009060284_00000 |title=Swan Knight|website=NHK|access-date=17 March 2025}} and The Boy Who Plays the Flute.{{cite news|url=https://www2.nhk.or.jp/archives/movies/?id=D0009060098_00000 |title=The Boy Who Plays the Flute|website=NHK|access-date=17 March 2025}} Another well-known long-running series was the music programme Pippo Pippo Bonbon, which ran from 1964 to 1981.{{cite news|url=https://www2.nhk.or.jp/archives/movies/?id=D0009062038_00000 |title=Pippo Pippo Bonbon|website=NHK|access-date=17 March 2025}} More recent ventures include Storytelling Journey,NHK TV and Radio Broadcasting: Elementary School 1st Year" pub. NHK Publishing 2003 {{ISBN|4-14-721131-3}} A-I-Ko-To-Ba and Listen to the Egg!.{{cite news|url=https://www.nhk.or.jp/pr/keiei/syubetsu/pdf/H29-001.pdf |title=2017 NHK General Broadcasting Schedule|website=NHK|access-date=17 March 2025}}

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Category:Children's radio

Category:Radio formats