Whether it’s explaining the latest in Coronavirus, or events around the world and the UK, the nation’s children have never needed a news source they can trust and understand more than they do now.
No audience is clearer about how they want to consume their news than the UK’s children.
Today is an exciting day for 主播大秀 Children’s as we look to preserve Newsround and deliver public service journalism for the next generation.
Newsround has a really important job to do. That’s why we welcome Ofcom’s decision to allow us to adapt how we do that job. In short, the headline is a simple one: We will give more kids, more news, in more places.
Today’s announcement means we can deliver more news online to the UK’s children, which is where we know they are consuming it. Our Newsround online audience averages 1m users every week. During Lockdown we set a new weekly record of an incredible 1.7m users. The number of children watching the bulletins on C主播大秀 TV channel have been declining for a number of years so we need to shift resources to where the kids are. The changes are being led by them.
From September, when most of the UK’s schoolchildren begin to go back to the classroom, there will be one Newsround bulletin in the morning on C主播大秀 rather than two. This will be available online and on demand? via 主播大秀 iPlayer as well as on the C主播大秀 channel. Ofcom have approved the proposal to provide 35 hours of live TV news a year rather than 85. As such there will no longer be a tea-time bulletin on the C主播大秀 channel. Whilst this feels like a big change, we know that the Newsround website already reaches many more children than the teatime bulletin.
We’ve also spoken to teachers about the ideal length for that morning bulletin as we know many of them show it in their classrooms, so with that feedback, we’ll extend the morning bulletin to eight minutes. This will help us expand the depth of our stories – giving greater focus to the stories that are important to children. We estimate around 750,000 kids watch our morning bulletin through the website every day at school. We want that to grow.
We’ll increase the amount of stories we do each day online, and employ our first, full-time environment journalist.
We want to increase our ambition around big journalistic moments for the whole of 主播大秀 News that are led by Newsround. We’ll also continue to deliver the in depth Newsround Specials around the topics that are so important to our young audience.
We’ll also launch a new Newsround YouTube Channel in September. Our aim there will be to grow attribution and awareness of Newsround, while reaching new and diverse audiences to drive them back to the website as much as possible.
Given Newsround’s long and proud heritage these changes aren’t ones we’ve taken lightly. Nor is it about saving money - the amount we spend on Newsround will stay the same. But these changes are necessary if Newsround is to mean as much for the next generation as it already has for the millions of kids who’ve watched it for nearly 50 years.
I’m really proud to be the editor of a Newsround team who continue to stay true to its values and the original ambition that was set out when it first launched in the 1970s.
We want the name Newsround to mean as much to the nation’s children in 2020 and beyond. We’re convinced it will.