Post

The BBC's Missed Future: How 'Input CBBC' Predicted YouTube in 2002

2025-06-15

16 September 2002... photos taken while wandering through the still-operational BBC Television Centre in White City, London. The place had history, but the project we were commissioned to work on was was about the…

16 September 2002... photos taken while wandering through the still-operational BBC Television Centre in White City, London. The place had history, but the project we were commissioned to work on was was about the future. Input CBBC was funded by Children's BBC to explore what was happening to kids' television and why audience numbers were shrinking fast. The answer wasn’t complicated... kids weren’t just watching TV anymore, they were making it. The first pilot we did in Sheffield confirmed the shift. Mobile phones with cameras were in their hands, and instead of rushing home to watch whatever was on, they were outside filming, experimenting, telling their own stories. The screen had moved from the living room to their pockets. The project then moved to Hull, working with schools to help kids produce and swap their own television content. Schools on the Bransholme Estate... chosen because it was one of the most deprived areas in the UK... became a key focus. The largest council estate in Europe, where one in ten secondary students were missing from the school system altogether, became the home of young creators to make and tell their own stories. For weeks Richard and I headed bac…

Topics: Learning technologySystems & softwareFamily

Matthew Eaves — escape room franchise founder, operator, and writer. Also: franchise, posts, contact.