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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that turns the dial of history every day

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Speaker 1: of the week. I'm Gay, Bluesier, and today we're looking

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Speaker 1: at a bizarre footnote in TV history The day when

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Speaker 1: UK Networks made the task of putting the kids to

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Speaker 1: bed a lot harder than it used to be. The

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Speaker 1: day was February sixty seven. British TV broadcasters broke the

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Speaker 1: Toddler's Truce by adding an extra hour of evening programming.

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Speaker 1: For the last eleven years, the BBC had aired nothing

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Speaker 1: but a test pattern during the six o'clock hour, Then,

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Speaker 1: after sixty TV free minutes, the broadcast would resume with

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Speaker 1: the evening shows. That nightly break in programming was known

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Speaker 1: colloquially as the Toddler's Truce. It was instituted in the

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Speaker 1: post war years as a way for parents to pry

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Speaker 1: their kids away from the TV screen and get them

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Speaker 1: ready for bed. But by nineteen fifty seven, the landscape

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Speaker 1: of British television had changed dramatically and the country's paternalistic

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Speaker 1: approach to broadcasting began to fall away. British citizens got

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Speaker 1: to enjoy television for only a few years before the

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Speaker 1: Second World War took it away. On September one, ninety nine,

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Speaker 1: the UK's only TV broadcaster, the BBC, suspended all programming

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Speaker 1: that was done in an effort to preserve national secrecy,

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Speaker 1: as it was thought that Germany might be able to

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Speaker 1: pick up British TV signals and gain valuable intel from

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Speaker 1: news broadcasts. It's unlikely that would have been the case,

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Speaker 1: but the UK took no chances. British television remained off

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Speaker 1: the air for the duration of the war. TV broadcasting

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Speaker 1: didn't resume until June seven, and when it did, the

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Speaker 1: BBC was still the only game in town. Being the

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Speaker 1: nation's only option for television imbued the broadcaster with a

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Speaker 1: sense of social responsibility. After all, its programming was funded

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Speaker 1: not by advertising, but by the sale of TV licenses

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Speaker 1: to viewers. The BBC owed it to the public then,

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Speaker 1: to provide quality programming for each member of the family.

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Speaker 1: Children's programming was a large part of that equation, but

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Speaker 1: there was always the problem of how to transition from

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Speaker 1: daytime kids shows to the more adult fair of evening TV.

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Speaker 1: Some members of the British government worried that kids might

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Speaker 1: keep watching after the switch and wind up seeing something

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Speaker 1: inappropriate that may seem like a problem for parents to solve.

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Speaker 1: But the government decided not to leave that the chance either. Instead,

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Speaker 1: it made a new polity ce requiring the BBC to

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Speaker 1: air nothing at all between six pm and seven pm

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Speaker 1: each evening. The idea was that the break would act

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Speaker 1: as a kind of buffer zone between programming blocks. It

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Speaker 1: would also give parents sixty distraction free minutes before the

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Speaker 1: grown up shows began, enough time, as Time Magazine put it,

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Speaker 1: to ring out their moppets and put them to bed.

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Speaker 1: The Toddler's Truce was introduced shortly after the BBC resumed

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Speaker 1: broadcasting in and it continued every night for the next decade. Initially,

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Speaker 1: audiences didn't mind the policy. The country had just gone

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Speaker 1: without television for nearly seven years. An hour of dead

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Speaker 1: air in the evening was a small price to pay

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Speaker 1: to have it back again. Plus the BBC had only

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Speaker 1: ever broadcasted for a limited number of hours each day anyway,

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Speaker 1: Viewers were used to having stretches of time when nothing

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Speaker 1: was on TV, so accepting the six o'clock hour as

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Speaker 1: one of them was easy adjustment. Of course, some members

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Speaker 1: of the public and the government felt the policy was overbearing,

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Speaker 1: but for the most part their opposition when ignored. That

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Speaker 1: began to change, though, in nineteen fifty five, with the

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Speaker 1: arrival of the UK's second broadcaster, Independent Television or i

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Speaker 1: t V. In contrast to the BBC's public broadcasting model,

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Speaker 1: I t V relied on advertising to fund its programming.

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Speaker 1: Despite that difference, I t V was still bound by

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Speaker 1: the same broadcasting policies as its competitor, including the Toddler's Truce.

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Speaker 1: For the BBC, going dark for an hour each night

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Speaker 1: was no big deal. In fact, it actually saved them

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Speaker 1: money since the station didn't need to produce programming to

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Speaker 1: fill that time. But for I t V it was

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Speaker 1: just the opposite. An hour without shows was an hour

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Speaker 1: without commercials, and therefore an hour of lost income. I

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Speaker 1: t V argued that the policy gave an unfair advantage

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Speaker 1: to the BBC, and so urged the government to do

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Speaker 1: away with it. In nineteen fifty six, I t V

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Speaker 1: found a powerful ally for that fight in Charles Hill,

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Speaker 1: Britain's new recently appointed Postmaster General. Broadcasting policy fell under

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Speaker 1: his purview, and he had never been a fan of

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Speaker 1: the Toddler's Truce, Hill thought the nightly blackout was heavy

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Speaker 1: handed and paternalistic. He later maintained that quote it was

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Speaker 1: the responsibility of the parents, not the state, to put

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Speaker 1: their children to bed at the right time. With that

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Speaker 1: in mind, Hill try to broker a compromise in late

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, suggesting that the programming break be cut

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Speaker 1: down to just thirty minutes. When the BBC refused, the

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Speaker 1: issue was taken up by Parliament, which eventually abolished the

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Speaker 1: policy altogether. The Toddler's Truce came to an end on

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Speaker 1: Saturday February sixteenth, nineteen fifty seven, when both I t

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Speaker 1: V and the BBC resumed six o'clock programming. The BBC's

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Speaker 1: first show that night technically started at six oh five

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Speaker 1: and was titled, appropriately enough, the six five Special. It

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Speaker 1: was a rock and roll juke box show meant to

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Speaker 1: appeal to a young audience. It apparently did the job

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Speaker 1: well too, since even though it was originally scheduled to

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Speaker 1: air for just six weeks and ultimately ran for a

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Speaker 1: full two years, The six five Special also established the

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Speaker 1: model followed by future British music shows, including the long

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Speaker 1: running Top of the Pops. BBC stations continued to cease

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Speaker 1: broadcasting between six fifteen and seven pm on Sundays, around

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Speaker 1: the time of evening church services, and from Monday to Friday,

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Speaker 1: the six to seven slot was filled by a new

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Speaker 1: less formal news show called Tonight. Believe it or not,

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Speaker 1: watching TV at six o'clock didn't lead to the disillusion

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Speaker 1: of British families. In fact, hardly anyone seemed to mind

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Speaker 1: the change at all. The BBC embraced itself for a

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Speaker 1: major backlash from parents, but according to a company spokesman,

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Speaker 1: the network received just six complaints about the change that

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Speaker 1: was regarded as a quote negligible public protests, proving that

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Speaker 1: the era of the toddler's truth was well and truly over.

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Speaker 1: I'm gay, Bluesier and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. If you

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Speaker 1: have a second and you're so inclined, consider keeping up

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Speaker 1: with us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at t d

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Speaker 1: I HC Show. And if you have any feedback you'd

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Speaker 1: like to share, feel free to send it along by

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Speaker 1: writing to This Day at I heeart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show and thanks

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Speaker 1: to you for listening. I'll see you back here again

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Speaker 1: tomorrow for another day in history. Class of the under

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Speaker 1: the Cold