Kids today have never had it so good… actually it’s much the same

I was writing a blog post at work the other day about Prince George’s upcoming first birthday, and pondered what one might get him for his birthday. From there, I decided to take a look at the toys that were best-sellers on the day that other key royals turned one.

It seems that over the years, nothing much has changed. In the year that Prince Charles turned one, in 1949, Lego bricks had just been invented. When Prince Harry was one, a Transformers Optimus Prime was the must have toy, and on Princess Eugenie’s first birthday, it was all about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

So I headed over to the Toys R Us website to see what kids are playing with these days. And what should I find but Transformers, Lego and Turtles right there amongst the headline buys. Add to that Star Wars action packs, Toy Story and Spiderman figures, Furbies and Barbies, and it seems that the same toys I was playing with in my youth are as popular as ever (I wasn’t playing with a Barbie myself, by the way).

And it isn’t just toy trends that are being repeated; so are children’s TV shows. According to Ofcom, the percentage of repeats aired on kids TV by public service broadcasters has shot up from 38% in 1998 to 91% in 2011. When I was young, I remember getting home from school, and the schedules were packed with original cartoons (Count Duckula, Trap Door), game shows (Knightmare, Fun House), arts and crafts (Art Attack, Hartbeat) and drama – can you imagine anything like Byker Grove or Press Gang being commissioned again?

Nowadays, on CITV, it’s wall to wall Horrid Henry (highly regarded, but repeated to within an inch of its life, Pokemon (how old is that?) and a Mr Bean cartoon (where are the new ideas?). CBeebies are still flogging Teletubbies and Tweenies from years ago, and looking at the schedule for CBBC for today, only Newsround, a Newsround spinoff show and a show about magicians are new. Three new shows out of the dozens that are being shown today; less than one and a half original hours in twelve hours of programming.

I can imagine it’s difficult to get children’s shows commissioned; they can be expensive to make and broadcasters might not feel they’ll get the return they get from other programmes. The commercial broadcasters may not sell enough ads to pay for it. But a wide variety of original programmes is surely important in the development of a child.

And interestingly, any new commissions that do come along borrow or fully steal from the past. Dangermouse is on its way back for a 52 part series next year, SuperTed will return in 2016 and Teletubbies is set for a new 60 episode run.

So when we say that things were better in the old days, we’re wrong. In terms of toys, TV and trends, it’s actually mostly the same.