The BBC should bring back children’s telly...
TV star Konnie craves family viewing
Former Blue Peter star Konnie Huq wants children’s TV back on BBC1 in the afternoons to help bring families together.
Konnie, the longest-serving presenter of the iconic show, says kids are missing out because their programmes are on digital channels that they can watch on demand and on their own devices.
The 48-year-old, who has two sons, Covey, 12, and Huxley, 10, with TV writer Charlie Brooker, says: “Blue Peter was on three times a week on BBC1, in what was still an era of family viewing.
“People would watch things all together at tea time around the telly and that’s been lost.
“That’s why the BBC should bring back children’s programmes on BBC1 after they get home from school. I think it would be a better way to use the children’s programming budget, rather than diluting the budget over a whole two channels.
“Then you could have Blue Peter back, and programmes like Newsround. Just give us an hour a day, that’s all I ask.”
Konnie admits her family is just as guilty of letting technology keep them apart.
She says: “We realised the other day that we don’t watch TV any more. We had our roof done and the aerial had come down, and we didn’t even notice until we needed to watch something in real time on telly years later.
“And when I did watch telly for the first time in ages, it felt like some weird parallel universe, with adverts and stuff. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh’.”
Konnie, who hosted Blue Peter from 1997 to 2008 and has also written children’s books, was speaking as she helped launch Talking Futures, an online toolkit which helps parents talk to their 11 to 18-year-olds about their future education and career.
She married writer and satirist Charlie, 53, creator of the hugely popular, Emmy awardwinning series Black Mirror, in 2010, after which she reduced her own TV commitments to raise their children.
But she admits it’s been difficult to get them to be impressed by their mum and dad’s successful careers.
She says: “They were very uninterested in us for a very long time. Then I went on Newsround, which they had to watch at school, and suddenly I was really cool because all their friends had seen me on the telly. Covey
We realised the other day that we don’t watch TV any more
has a friend who loves Pointless, so he was excited when I was on that. But soon they are back to not caring again.”
She might have a degree from Cambridge but Konnie admits she struggles with technology, unlike her boys.
“Charlie’s a technophile, just like the kids. If something can crash on me, it will. Everything I touch when it comes to tech turns to sh**. I’m always getting locked out of things. It reminds me of when my mum used to say, ‘Kon, can you set the video recorder up?’
“And now I am my mum. My kids can connect the TV to the internet to the Xbox, even to the doorbell, and don’t get me started on that.
“I just don’t get it. My husband’s got this stupid thing on his bedside table where you can stick your phone and all your chargers. But
I just prefer plugging in my cable, and it takes up less space. Half that stuff is just stuff to make us buy more stuff.
“We don’t have any arguments though. If Charlie wants to charge his phone on a stupid thing that takes up space on his bedside table he can. But his is way more messy than my bedside table.”
Konnie’s older sister Rupa has been the Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton since 2015.
She says she will be out campaigning with her once an election is finally called but that being one of her constituents has its drawbacks too. Konnie explains: “It’s annoying because I’m always at the bottom of the pile because otherwise it will look like nepotism.
“I asked her if she could help me get my children into their first choice school, but she was having none of it.”
And will husband Charlie be helping out on the campaign trail too? Konnie laughs. “That’s a good question. I doubt it. He’ll just be writing something, like always, hunched over his laptop.”