The Saturday Children’s Hour radio show (1924-2010, Norway)
Original title
Lørdagsbarnetimen
Episode time
60 minutes
Language
Norwegian
The first show of Lørdagsbarnetimen was brodcast on 20 December 1924 under the name Barnetimen (Children’s Time) by the private radio Kringkastingsselskapet A/S. From the beginning, the program was defined as entertainment for the children, something that should be a getaway from school time. As a result, most of the plots of the first permanent host, Uncle Einar, were taking the children on adventures rather than trying to educate them. At this time, it was quite innovative because most of the shows for adults were in a form of lectures, while The Saturday Children’s Hour was open to improvisation and debates between the participants.
Just like other Norwegian radio shows, The Saturday Children’s Hour was forced to stop production during World War 2 when the country was under German occupation. When the show returned in 1945, Lauritz Johnson became the NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Company) head of children’s and youth department and took over the show. He slightly changed the character of the show, now it included an orchestra and a choir. In the 1950s, over 90% of Norwegian children were listening to the show.
The production of The Saturday Children’s Hour was stopped by NRK in 2010 for... an unusual reason. While the show was still popular (with over 300,000 listeners) the market research indicated that only about 9% of the children were listening to the show, while the majority of the audience were adults (most of them over 45 and about half of them even over 60). So, NRK, in its wisdom, decided that it is better to have no audience than to have an audience outside of their target group, which ended the show just 4 years before the 100th anniversary of the first show. Which was a shame.
add a commentCast of The Saturday Children’s Hour
as Uncle Einar
as Uncle Lauritz
as Aunt Sonni
