Children's BBC Presentation was the BBC's presentation of its programmes for children and which was the only part of BBC One and BBC Two's television presentation where the continuity announcer appeared on the TV screen rather than as a voice over.
The services for children on BBC One and BBC Two (apart from on BBC Two on Saturday mornings) have now ended but similar presentation now takes place on the CBeebies and CBBC channels.
History
In-vision presentation is old as the first children's programme on the BBC which began on Saturday 24 April 1937. For the Children would go on to be most famously presented live by Annette Mills with her sidekick Muffin the Mule. These early shows were live performances but as the television service became more sophisticated, with the development of pre-recorded programmes and series, children's programmes went on to be introduced by the offscreen continuity announcer announcing the next programme from a small continuity booth with the usual BBC1 or BBC2 branding appearing on screen although some special branding was put in use to reflect better the audience they were serving.
In 1984, a BBC Micro B 3D Collage was introduced to generate computer generated stings for the children's strand. Such animations were used to introduce programme, such as a spider spinning down onto a detonator triggering the words Hello from BBC1, and to link into promotions for further programmes, such as a group of sky divers falling from a plane to spell out a 'Later' caption. However, despite the graphics, programmes were still directly introduced by the BBC1 globe symbol, albeit occasionally accompanied by a choice of two different 14-note synthesized tunes.
In September 1985 a BBC press release announced the arrival of, "a new package of programmes specially gift-wrapped for children." This involved the afternoon programmes on BBC1 being rebranded as Children's BBC, along with the continuity announcer appearing on screen (in-vision). Rather than use the existing BBC1 announcer, a new presenter was selected. The launch presenter was Phillip Schofield, presenting the slot for the first time at 15:55 BST on 9 September 1985.
It was not until 1994 that presentation for children's programming got its own studio space.
In 2002, when BBC Children's divided its services into CBBC and CBeebies, programmes for younger children were rebranded under the name CBeebies and the same production department began CBeebies Presentation.
Studios
1985 - 1994
From its launch in 1985 until 1994, Children's BBC was presented from the regular continuity announcer's booth in the BBC1 network control area (NC1), which had a fixed camera so that the presenter could appear in vision; as it remained an operational continuity booth, the presenter would partly direct their own links by way of vision and sound mixers built into the studio desk.
The NC1 booth became known as 'the Broom Cupboard' due to its small size (the term was first used to refer to a smaller temporary booth, but was later retroactively applied to the main booth). The plain booth wall behind the presenter would be livened up with elements of set dressing, VT monitors and pictures sent in by viewers.
Occasionally, when Children's BBC was going out on BBC2 rather than BBC1 due to events coverage, the presenter would be located in the BBC2 continuity booth, which was not set dressed for Children's BBC, for transmission purposes.
There were two presentation studios – larger than the Broom Cupboards but smaller than full programme studios – known as Pres A and Pres B. It was not initially thought economically viable to use these for daily Children's BBC links, hence the use of the Broom Cupboard. However, by 1987 these studios were being used for the mid-morning 'birthday card' slots and weekend and holiday morning strands such as But First This. The main afternoon strand remained in the Broom Cupboard.
Initially, Children's BBC Scotland did not have a presentation studio upon launch in 1992 - instead it was presented upon various locations across Scotland for the school summer holiday programming block The Ice Cream Van at the beginning, presentation studios were eventually used for the regional breakfast and mid-morning shows when BBC Scotland opened their kids department around the mid-1990s before finally reverting to the roof top of BBC Scotland's Queen Margaret Drive headquarters for another summer holiday children's programme Up For It in the late 1990s.