The BBC is to invest an additional £34 million in children’s content across three years to 2019/20.
The corporation said the additional funding will “deliver a significant increase in BBC Children’s online budget, reflecting the increasing share of children’s media time spent online and the increasing competition for their attention.”
The additional money will see the BBC Children’s budget reach £124.4 million by 2019/20, up from £110 million today. The corporation says by 2019/20, a quarter or £31.4 million will be spent online.
Tony Hall, BBC director general, said: “We put children’s front and centre throughout the charter renewal process and today’s announcement reflects our commitment to our youngest audiences.
“We’re making BBC Children fit for the future, maintaining our world class channels whilst enhancing our online offer to meet the needs of the next generation.”
The BBC has also published its annual plan for 2017/18. It includes details of:
– A year-long season of science and technology programming under the banner of Tomorrow’s World. Taking science out of the lab and into peoples’ homes we will use the biggest scientific partnership the BBC has ever convened to answer the big questions relevant to everyone.
– Civilisations – a major season across television, radio and online telling the story of art from the dawn of human history to the present day, for the first time on a global scale. A nine-part series on BBC Two will be accompanied by programming on BBC Four, Radio 3 and Radio 4.
– Continuing to showcase Hull as the UK City of Culture 2017 over the coming months, with hundreds of hours of coverage of Hull 2017.
– Other anniversaries commemorated this year across the BBC will include the 500th of Martin Luther’s sparking of the Protestant Reformation, the 100th of the Russian Revolution, and the 70th of the partition of India.
The BBC has also unveiled plans to combat the rise of fake news with data and journalism teams to strengthen its capability for interrogation of data, facts and presentation.
