Today marks the 50th anniversary of a fateful event in the history of broadcasting: the end of the so-called "Toddlers' Truce". Frank McNallyexplains.
The truce was a feature of the early days of British television and it seems an impossibly quaint idea now. But it really happened, and it involved a 60-minute suspension of all programmes every day between 6pm and 7pm, so that - wait for it - the children could be put to bed.
It was a bit like the "holy hour" in Irish pubs, only better observed. The BBC was quite enthusiastic about it, in fact, because as an advertising-free station, it didn't lose any revenue in the process. Not only that: taking an hour off every day was a great way of saving on the programme budget. Unfortunately, commercial television was not so sanguine about the idea. Once ITV went on air in 1955, the truce's days were numbered.
In August that year, Timemagazine took a wry look at the "invasion" that was about to hit England in the form of imported TV programmes, mostly from the US, and advertising breaks. It found the country divided between those who dreaded the onslaught - "a mixture of Laborites (sic), churchmen, and the more conservative Britons" - and the millions who longed for the day they could watch something more stimulating than "the toneless, grey gruel fed to them by the BBC".
Defences were being dug, meanwhile. Even in the commercial era, Timenoted, Britain would allow no Sunday afternoon programming aimed at children, lest they be tempted away from Bible school. On children's shows generally, no advertising could be employed that took advantage of the viewers' "natural credulity". And of course there would be the daily cessation between the daytime and evening schedules: "an hour of TV silence," said Time, when "parents can wring out their moppets and put them to bed".
Less than a year later, however, ITV was struggling to survive and the truce was under pressure. It also had a powerful opponent in Britain's Postmaster General, who thought it an absurd example of BBC paternalism.
"It was the responsibility of the parents, not the state, to put their children to bed at the right time," he said later. So when the BBC refused even a compromise that would have cut the blackout to 30 minutes, parliament pressed ahead and abolished it altogether. The truce ended on February 16th, 1955, and hostilities have raged ever since.
Fifty years on, the hour from six to seven has evolved - on both sides of the Irish Sea - into a televisual buffer zone between children's entertainment and the night-time schedules. Admittedly, the news programmes that now dominate the slot could hardly be called neutral. When it's all that stands between Buffy the Vampire Slayerand the latest headlines from Iraq, parents can almost be grateful for an extended ad break.
But the classic crossover programme - scheduled at 6pm on at least three different channels - is The Simpsons. The adventures of America's favourite family are written so skilfully as to be funny to both adults and children, on different levels - although there are moments in every episode when you just have to hope that you and your seven-year-old are not laughing at the same joke.
I have heard of modern children who go to bed between 6pm and 7pm; I've just never met one. So if we were going to have a new TV truce that would be relevant to real-life children, I'd like one that applied across the schedules, and banned all advertisements aimed at them. Unfortunately, this would require a UN resolution and probably an international peace-keeping force, because with the globalisation of television, the front-line is now everywhere.
A while ago, in a moment of weakness, I signed up for a digital TV package. It seemed like a good idea at the time and, although it doesn't now, I have not yet managed to cancel the subscription because that would involve getting through to NTL on the phone, a feat that has so far eluded me. In the meantime, the occasional and undoubted benefits of such child-calming devices as the Nickleodeon channel are outweighed by the appalling number of ads - broadcast at sinisterly high volume - pouring out of them.
I used to have high hopes that the Swedes, who ban all ads to children under 12, would spread their enlightenment to the rest of the EU. But attempts to regulate television throughout the EU are bedevilled by the "country of origin" principle, which allows channels to broadcast in all states while only having to register in one. This would allow the satellite channels to circumvent rules that cost their terrestrial competitors money.
There is partial peace between advertisers and children in this country. RTÉ agrees voluntarily not to consider pre-schoolers as legitimate targets, and a code introduced by the Broadcasting Commission two years ago restricted ads for fatty foods and the like. I haven't seen the Milky Bar Kid lately, so maybe he was hit in the crossfire. But the best form of children's advertising is no advertising. And 50 years on from the truce, unfortunately, the only safe haven in these islands is still the BBC.