Children in Need

BBC Children in Need (also promoted as Plant Mewn Angen in Wales ) is the BBC's UK charity. Since 1980 it has raised over £600 million to change the lives of disabled children and young people in the UK. One of the highlights is an annual telethon, held in November and televised on BBC One and BBC One HD from 7:30pm until 2am. "Pudsey Bear" is BBC Children in Need's mascot, whilst Terry Wogan is a long-standing host. BBC Children in Need is one of three high-profile British telethons, although the only charity belonging to the BBC, the other telethons being Red Nose Day and Sport Relief, both supporting the Comic Relief charity. The 2012 appeal took place on Friday 16 November.

Earlier BBC appeals
The BBC's first broadcast charity appeal took place in 1927, in the form of a five-minute radio broadcast on Christmas Day. It raised about £1,143, which equates to about £27,150 by today's standards, and was donated to four children's charities. The first televised appeal took place in 1955 and was called the Children's Hour Christmas Appeal, with the yellow glove puppet Sooty Bear and Harry Corbett fronting it. The Christmas Day Appeals continued on TV and radio until 1979. During that time a total of £625,836 was raised. Terry Wogan first appeared during this five-minute appeal in 1978, and again in 1979. Sometimes cartoon characters such as Peter Pan were used.

BBC Children in Need


In 1980, the BBC held its first telethon, a single programme lasting a whole evening, devoted to raising money exclusively destined for charities working with children in the United Kingdom. The new format, presented by Terry Wogan, Sue Lawley and Esther Rantzen, saw a dramatic increase in public donations: £1 million was raised that year. The telethon format has been retained each year since and grown in scope to incorporate further events broadcast on radio and online. As a regular presenter, Wogan has become firmly associated with the annual event, continuing to front the event through into 2012 after scaling down his other BBC commitments.

In 1988, BBC Children in Need became a registered charity (number 802052) in England and Wales, followed by registration in Scotland (SC039557) in 2008.

Acts
The telethon features performances from many top singers and groups, with many by celebrities also appearing on the seven-hour long programme performing various activities such as sketches or musical numbers. Featured celebrities often include those from programmes on rival network ITV, including some appearing in-character, and/or from the sets of their own programmes. A performance by BBC newsreaders has become an annual fixture. Stars of newly opened West End musicals regularly perform a number from their show later in the evening after "curtain call" in their respective theatres.

Broadcast
The BBC devotes the entire night's programming on its flagship channel BBC One to the Children in Need telethon, with the exception of 35 minutes at 10 o'clock while BBC News at Ten, Weather and Regional News airs, and activity continues on BBC Two with special programming, such as Mastermind Children in Need, which is a form of Celebrity Mastermind, with four celebrities answering questions on a chosen subject and on general knowledge. In recent years, before the telethon itself the BBC has broadcast Children in Need specials of The One Show, in which hosts Matt Baker and Alex Jones did a rickshaw challenge and a celebrity version of Pointless in which Pudsey assists hosts Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman.

Unlike the other BBC charity telethon Comic Relief, Children in Need relies a lot on the BBC regions for input into the telethon night. The BBC English regions all have around 5–8 minute round-ups every hour during the telethon. This does not interrupt the schedule of items shown from BBC Television Centre as the host Terry Wogan usually hands over to the regions, giving those in the main network studio a short break. However BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and BBC Northern Ireland do opt out of the network schedule with a lot of local fundraising news and activities from their broadcast area. Usually they will go over to the network broadcast at various times of the night, and usually they will show some network items later than when the English regions will see them. This is to give the BBC nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland a much larger slot than the BBC English regions because the "nations" comprise a distinct audience of the BBC. Usually BBC Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland hand back to network coverage from around 1:00 am in the telethon night. For the 2010 appeal this changed, with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales deciding not to have their usual opt-outs and instead following the English regions' pattern of having updates every hour.

Pudsey Bear
The mascot that fronts the Children in Need appeal is called "Pudsey Bear", created and named in 1985 by BBC graphic designer Joanna Ball. The bear was named after her hometown of Pudsey, West Yorkshire, where her grandfather was mayor. A reproduction of the bear mascot (made of vegetation) is in Pudsey park, near the town centre. Originally introduced for the 1985 appeal, Pudsey Bear was created as a triangular shaped logo, depicting a yellow-orange teddy bear with a circular head, semi-circular ears and a triangular bandana tied over one eye. The bandana was red, spotted with small black triangles. The mouth of the bear was an inverted semi-circle, depicting a sad expression. The lettering "BBC" appeared as 3 circular black buttons running vertically down the front of the bear, one capital letter on each, in white. Perpendicular to the buttons, the words "children-in-need" appeared in all lower case letters along the base of the trianglar outline. Accessibility for young readers, and people with disabilities including speech and reading challenges, were factors weighed by the designer Joanna Ball, specifically the "P" sound in "Pudsey" name, and the choice of all lower case sans serif letters for the logotype. The original design was adapted for various applications for use in the 1985 appeal, both 2D graphics and 3 dimensional objects. Items using the original 1985 design included a filmed opening title sequence, using cartoon cell animation, a postage stamp, and a prototype soft toy, commissioned from a film and TV prop maker (citation). The original prototype soft toy was orange and reflected the circular shaped head and inverted mouth, which was then adapted for approximately 12 identical bears, one for each regional BBC Television Studio. These bears were numbered and tagged with the official logo and auctioned off as part of the appeal. The number 1 Pudsey Bear was allocated to the Leeds region. Joanna Lumley appeared with one of the soft toys during the opening of Blackpool Illuminations and named Pudsey Bear as the official mascot of the BBC Children In Need appeal.

In 1986, the logo was redesigned. Whilst retaining the concept of a teddy bear with a bandana over one eye, all other elements were changed. Specifically, the triangular elements of the underlying design were abandoned, as well as the corporate identity colour scheme was changed. The new bandana design was white with multi-coloured spots, one of the buttons was removed and the logotype now appeared as building bricks, which spelled out "BBC CHILDREN IN NEED" in capital letters.

In 2007 Pudsey and the logo were redesigned again. By 2009, Pudsey had been joined by another bear, a brown female bear named "Blush". She has a spotty bow with the pattern similar to Pudsey's bandana pattern, continuing into 2010.

Official singles

 * The Collective includes Gary Barlow, Tulisa Contostavlos, Wretch 32, Ed Sheeran, Ms. Dynamite, Chipmunk, Mz Bratt, Dot Rotten, Labrinth, Rizzle Kicks and Tinchy Stryder.

Criticism
Although Children in Need is welcomed by a large proportion of the British public, there are some who offer an alternative view, that the portrayal of children, particularly disabled children, as victims is unfortunate and counter-productive. It is argued that a change in social attitudes will benefit the disadvantaged more than money and public sympathy.

In November 2006, Intelligent Giving published an article about Children in Need, which attracted wide attention across the British media. The article, titled "Four things wrong with Pudsey", described donations to Children in Need as a "lazy and inefficient way of giving" and pointed out that, as a grant-giving charity, Children in Need would use donations to pay two sets of administration costs. It also described the quality of some of its public reporting as "shambolic".

In 2007, it was reported that Terry Wogan, as the show's host, had been receiving an annual honorarium since 1980 (amounting to £9,065 in 2005). This made him the only celebrity paid for his participation in Children in Need. Wogan, however, stated that he would "quite happily do it for nothing" and had "never asked for a fee". The BBC stated that the amount, which was paid from BBC resources and not from the Children in Need charity fund, had "never been negotiated", having instead increased in line with inflation. Two days before the 2007 event, it was reported that Wogan had waived his compensation.

There has also been concern about the type of groups receiving funding from Children in Need. Writing in The Spectator, Ross Clark noted how funding goes towards controversial groups such as Women in Prison, which campaigns against jailing female criminals. Another charity highlighted was the Children’s Legal Centre, which provided funding for Shabina Begum to sue her school as she wanted to wear the Jilbab. Clark pondered whether donors seeing cancer victims on screen would appreciate "that a slice of their donation would be going into the pockets of Cherie Blair to help a teenage girl sue her school over her refusal to wear a school uniform".