Children today are in the midst of a sea-change in broadcasting. They’re growing up with widespread access to both live and on-demand output at the touch of a few buttons across a multitude of devices. Their parents are the generation who grew up with the BBC Microcomputer, the Domesday Project, Teletext, and some of the finest programming — still enjoyed today — that the British broadcasting industry has ever produced.
That generation, my generation — a generation which then grasped emerging convergent technologies with both hands — is at least in part responsible for the landscape of the broadcasting world as it exists today. As children, possibilities unfolded before us despite the crude state of the available technology. We saw beyond the low-resolution graphics, awkward interfaces and lack of computing power. We saw what these ideas could become.
As adults, we have striven to make those possibilities a reality, and the technologies required to do this are becoming widespread. Much of it is still in its infancy, but rich hypermedia, access to television and radio from a range of devices (from the television to the mobile phone and beyond), and instant, affordable, global telecommunications are together changing the way our children — and us — are informed, educated and entertained.
