Children's radio slashed as internet and TV take up their time

The BBC is to slash children's radio by three-quarters after admitting that it cannot compete with TV and the internet.

The last scheduled radio programming for the under-sixes will be scrapped, 89 years after the BBC launched Children's Hour in 1922. Older children will continue to be served by one hour a day of "family friendly" content on the digital station Radio 7, which will be renamed Radio Four Extra.

But the overall number of hours devoted to children will be reduced from 1,400 to 350 and funding cut from £2.1million to £1million, under proposals ratified today by the Corporation's governing body, the BBC Trust.

In a review of "children's audio strategy", the trust said: "We know that children rarely choose to listen to the radio over other entertainment options and that radio listening is instead the choice of the parent or carer." Focus groups had said "the time might have passed when children could be reached through radio".

The two-hour daily CBeebies programme at 6am on Radio 7 will be dropped after its weekly audience dropped to 12,000 children. Instead, there will be 20 minutes of daily CBeebies audio content available for download.

Licence-fee payers should be able to vote on programme content and senior BBC salaries, a Tory MP proposed today. Harlow's Robert Halfon also wants to change the law so the BBC Trust and executive board are elected. He said the BBC was run like a "feudal monarchy" and that the changes would guarantee greater accountability.