SVT Barn

SVT Barn, formerly Barnkanalen and SVT B, is a Swedish free-to-air television channel from state broadcaster Sveriges Television dedicated to children's television programming. ''Barn'' is Swedish for ''children'', whereas ''Barnkanalen'' meant ''The Children's Channel''. (No relation to the British '' The Children's Channel''.) In the first semester of 2023 alone, SVT Barn had a daily reach of viewers exceeding 100 times the volume that Disney Channel has in Sweden.

History

SVT Barn, then known as Barnkanalen, started broadcasting on 23 December 2002. The channel was an alternative to the established commercial children's channels, with emphasis on viewer interaction, as well as content sent in from kindergartens and schools. During its first year it was only available from 6.30 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. on weekdays. The channel also took a "summer vacation" between 23 May and 18 August. The rest of the time could be used for other programming; some weekends, one could see tennis in the schedule.

The programming was aimed at pre-school children in the mornings and the afternoon programming was targeted at older children (pre-teens). The morning block featured special announcers that presented programmes from "the TV ship". Right after it had finished, the morning programmes would rerun immediately. At 1.00 p.m., an interactive show called ''Twebby'' was broadcast, followed by programmes for older children presented by two animated continuity announcers called "Joppe and Nella". Afternoon programming included animation, English language programming as well as dramas from the SVT archives.

On 1 November 2003, the channel started broadcasting on weekends, from 7.00 a.m.. From 2004, SVT Barn would be a full year service.

During the 2004 Summer Olympics and the 2004 Summer Paralympics, SVT Extra would simulcast with SVT Barn in the evenings and from 27 September 2004, the evening slot would be occupied by Kunskapskanalen.

The TV ship was removed in the autumn of 2005 and its presenters was integrated with '' Bolibompa'', the evening children strand on SVT1. Bolibompa would from then be the brand for pre-school programming on SVT Barn as well. ''Twebby'' was discontinued later in the autumn.

In February 2006, SVT Barn got new graphics and Joppe and Nella were removed. Instead, a new show called '' Bobster'' was shown between the programmes in the afternoon. Bobster would also broadcast between 7 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. in SVT1.

On 27 August 2007, SVT Barn started its broadcasting hours extended to 7 p.m., allowing ''Bobster'' to broadcast for another hour. On 25 August 2008 SVT made a major reshuffle in its schedules. This meant that the primetime broadcasts from ''Bolibompa'' at 6 p.m. and ''Bobster'' at 7 p.m. that were previously broadcast on SVT1 would be moved to SVT Barn. SVT Barn was upgraded as one of the three main channels from SVT, meaning that the channel would receive most of SVT's funding for children's programmes. With the reorganization, SVT Barn was given a new look. The new logo reads "SVTB", but it is still referred to as "Barnkanalen".

SVTB would now start every day at 6.30 a.m. with programmes aimed at pre-schoolers under the ''Bolibompa'' brand. This includes presenter-lead segments called ''Bolibompamorgon'' between 7 a.m. and 8.30 a.m. on Weekdays and ''Bolibompahelg'' between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. on Weekends. ''Bolibompa'' continues until 3 p.m. when ''Bobster'' for the older children starts. On Weekends, Bobster starts at 2 p.m. ''Bobster'' also includes a news update from '' Lilla Aktuellt'' every weekday at 4 p.m. The primetime edition of ''Bolibompa'' broadcast between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. This is followed by ''Bobster'' between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m.

In January 2015, the channel released a viral music video () featuring abstract representations of genitalia, amassing a million views on YouTube between 8 and 13 January. The release of the song caused moral panic on social media from concerned parents, with some raising concerns about its lack of educational value. Its composer Johan Holmström reacted by saying that the negative reactions were due to its visuals.

On 18 June 2019, Barnkanalen became SVT Barn.

Logos and identities

File:SVT Barnkanalen logo 2008–2012.svg, SVT Barnkanalen's third logo used from 25 August 2008 to 10 June 2012.
File:Barnkanalen logo 2012.svg, SVT Barnkanalen's fourth logo used from 11 June 2012 to 18 June 2019.
File:BarnKanalen.svg, Stacked version of SVT Barnkanalen's fourth logo with a modified SVT trademark from 2016.

Programming

Pre-schoolers

Since the programming in the mornings is mostly aimed at preschoolers, it is either Swedish language in original, dubbed into Swedish or silent. In the past, they mostly aired older programming in the mornings such as Professor Balthazar, Doctor Snuggles and the Alfons Åberg films. Pingu was also aired on Barnkanalen. This was because it was expensive to dub foreign series and create new programs.

However, in the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s, more recent imported series dubbed into Swedish, such as '' Bitz & Bob'' and ''Elinor Wonders Why'' and other popular PBS shows of 2020, as well as local productions, began to air. They continue to air, and new dubs continue being made, to this day.

Pre-teens and teens

In the 1990s and 2000s, Barnkanalen also showed some animation aimed at older children with their original soundtracks, for example the foreign anime '' Cardcaptors'' and imported US ''Animaniacs'' and ''AAAHH!!! Real Monsters''. Notably, there is a version of ''Real Monsters'' dubbed into Swedish, but it was only shown on the competing satellite channel Nickelodeon Scandinavia at the time. Other animated programmes aired during this time included the animated ''Mr. Bean'', '' Garfield and Friends'', '' Code Lyoko'', '' Martin Mystery'', '' The Three Friends and Jerry'', '' The Rubbish World of Dave Spud'' and '' Oggy and the Cockroaches''.

In the later half of the 2000s to the 2010s, animated series aimed at older children acquired from countries around the world started to air with Swedish dubbing. They continue to air, and new dubs continue being made, to this day.

Other acquired programming includes drama series from each country, such as Australia, the US, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada, France, and Germany.

The many Australian drama series shown in the channel included '' Mirror, Mirror'', '' Search for Treasure Island'', '' Home Farm Twins'', '' The Saddle Club'' and '' Ocean Star''. US shows include PBS series such as '' Ramona'' and Nickelodeon series ''The Secret World of Alex Mack''. From Britain comes the Central series '' Woof!'' and '' Press Gang''. Many live action shows that were once broadcast with their original soundtracks have been broadcast with Swedish dubbing in recent years.

Between 2011 and 2014, Barnkanalen was responsible for airing the Junior Eurovision Song Contest after previously having been aired on SVT 1.

Availability

Initially Barnkanalen was available on satellite from Canal Digital, on certain digital cable distributors, and free-to-air in the digital terrestrial network, being the first channel to broadcast without encryption in the platform. An agreement of distribution on the Viasat satellite platform was settled in 2003. A few days earlier, SVT had decided to allow cable providers to transform the channel and convert it to analogue PAL in their systems.

Many cable companies used copyright issues motivate an additional fee for the channel. An agreement that would make SVT pay the copyright costs was made some years later and made Barnkanalen (as well as Kunskapskanalen and SVT24) available in the analogue basic packages on the two major cable providers, UPC Sweden and Com Hem, from 1 July 2005. This increased the penetration of the channel dramatically.

References

External links

*

{{Förvaltningsstiftelsen

Barn
Television channels in Sweden
Television channels and stations established in 2002
2002 establishments in Sweden
Children's television networks