Interview
TOTAL LICENSING
Greg Childs, OBE The Children’s Media Conference (CMC) Editorial Director Greg Childs has been awarded an OBE for Services to International Trade and the Children’s Media Sector in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List. The award has been presented to Greg in recognition of his considerable contribution to children’s media throughout his career, which started at the BBC where he worked for 27 years primarily as a director, producer and executive producer of children’s programmes. Total Licensing chatted to Greg to find out more. Congratulations on your recent honour! What does this mean for you, personally and professionally? Personally, it’s a fantastic cheer-up for the start of what looks like another difficult year for everyone. I have to admit that my inboxes on all platforms are packed with congratulations messages – some
from people I haven’t seen for years – that is really cheering! Professionally, apart from people now having to stand up whenever I enter a room – I think the main difference is not for me, but for the kids’ media industry. I’m not the first in the kids’ sector to be honoured. In the UK people like the amazing Anna Home
and Brian Cosgrove of Cosgrove Hall have the same award (which is humbling to say the least). Anne Wood has a CBE and animation campaigner Oli Hyatt an MBE. However, it’s been a while since the industry has been recognised in this way and that is important. The award is partly for “services to international trade” – that reflects the phenomenal powerhouse that is the UK children’s creative sector pursuing international sales and coproduction. The award citation also mentions “services to the children’s media sector,” which I think is really about what all those creators, makers and distributors of children’s TV and other media have done for the kids’ audience in the UK itself – by providing great content. Can you give us some highlights of your career to date? Being a floor assistant on the 1979 General Election programme at The BBC – amazing to work for an organisation that was part of the making of history. (And yes, it was me who gave David Dimbleby the Mars bar he was caught eating live on national television). When the light went on in my head as a trainee Assistant Producer on “Play School” and I realised how fantastic the children’s audience were compared to mere adults. Almost weekly on “Record Breakers” – appreciating the opportunity and responsibility of being given a great budget (compared to anything we’d see today) to take on a much-loved brand, breathe new life into it, and steer it through ten years “in sickness and in health,” doing some of the weirdest things you’d see on TV but sticking to public service values throughout. Launching the first ever game on a BBC website – it was like a moon landing back then. Nearly breaking the British internet
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