The Stage

That Summer Day triumphs at Children’s Baftas

Published Monday 26 November 2007 at 11:35 by Matthew Hemley

BBC show That Summer Day has been named best drama at this year’s Bafta Children’s Awards.

The drama, which is about the London terrorist attacks in July 2005, beat competition from Byker Grove, Jackanory and My Life as a Popat to scoop the award at the ceremony held in London last night.

Other winners included The Slammer, a CBBC series, which won in the entertainment category, and Charles Martin, director of the ITV comedy series My Life as a Popat, who took the award in the breakthrough talent category.

Meanwhile, Barney Harwood won the best presenter award and CBeebies was named channel of the year.

The writer award went to Bridget Hurst for her work on Charlie and Lola and producer Mick Robertson, who was presenter of the ITV children’s show Magpie in the seventies, won the evening’s special award.

Following the event, producers’ trade association Pact called on people to take action to protect the future of children’s television in the UK by signing a petition on the 10 Downing Street website.

Children’s presenter Floella Benjamin is spearheading the campaign, which has been launched in response to the decline in investment in original children’s programming by all the major broadcasters.

A recent review of the state of children’s television carried out by regulator Ofcom found that investment in first-run original programming by the commercial public service broadcasters, including ITV, Channel 4 and Five, had halved in real terms since 1998.

Benjamin said: “Without immediate action this spells the end of British kids’ TV as we know it, leaving the future generations nothing other than series of re-runs and imports.”

Laurence Bowen, producer of My Life as a Popat, also joined the debate, claiming the industry was in “crisis”. He said: “Only direct action from the government can save it”.

Pact’s petition can be signed at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/kidstelevision. The body has also set up a mechanism at www.pact.co.uk/campaign whereby letters are automatically generated to MPs when people log on and enter their postcode and address.