Production Preliminaries — Development and Research

Abstract

As we have seen access to funding and broadcast transmission are key factors in determining whether a preschool production will actually get made. Looking beyond the institutional and economic facets of the production environment, this chapter considers those specific features of the development process that determine the nature of television for young children. According to Wartella (1994: 39), writing about US children’s television generally, production is governed not only by the externalities of economics and industry frameworks, but also by ‘internal constraints’ which include producers’ conceptions about their child audience (‘what children are, what they like, how they watch, what they can and do learn’) as well as the different practices they employ to make programmes. Focusing on this ‘implicit model’ (ibid.: 39) of children’s television production, this chapter concentrates first on how ideas for preschool television are conceived and developed. Drawing on interviews and observations, primarily with British producers, it pinpoints how audience-centred, creative and commercial considerations take priority depending on different production circumstances. It then considers different attitudes to research in Britain and America, and how this impacts programme-making, before concluding with a case study of how curricular research is integrated in practice.