CHILDREN'S programmes on ITV, long the ugly duckling of the screen, are getting a £300,000 face-lift this summer. For television chiefs have discovered that the younger they get viewers - the longer they keep them.
Lewis Rudd, head of children's programmes for Thames told me: "In the past we have tended to take children as the forgotten audience. But that is changing.
"I believe children's programmes are worth investing a lot of time and money on. They are, after all, the viewers of the future.
"An obvious test of success is audience ratings. On this score the two highest rated ITV children's programmes are both ours: 'Sooty' and 'Sexton Blake'"
Thames claims that its weekly magazine programme for youngsters "Magpie" has doubled its audience in two years and how has 8 million viewers - 2 million more than the B.B.C. rival "Blue Peter".
Three new children's series are to be launched on the ITV network this summer:-
"Ace of Wands," with Michael MacKenzie (sic) as a stage magician who uses his powers to outwit Madame Midnight, the Queen of the Underworld, played by glamorous Hildegaard (sic) Neil.
"Two D's and a dog," a comedy series starring Denise Coffrey (sic), David Jason and an Old-English Sheepdog called Fido.
"Wreckers At Deadeye," about two youngers - played by 15-year-old Catherine Organ and Tom Owen - involved in an eighteenth-century ship-wrecking off the Cornish coast.
But there is one sobering thought for the planners of children's ITV programmes.
They have discovered that 10-year-old viewers prefer "adult" programmes like "Callan" and "Doomwatch."
One comment here echoes a similar one later made in the TVTimes - that Madame Midnight was to be a regular adversary.