Engaging, critical, entertaining: Transforming public service television for children in Denmark

This article offers a critical periodization of the children’s programming offered by Denmark’s primary public broadcaster, Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). Through a careful analysis of content produced by DR and its youth section since 1951, the article argues that four distinct periods of children’s television can be identified, leading up to today’s competitive period. The article shows how Danish public service children’s TV has played an important role in the modernization of the view of children, serving as an experimental platform for putting the perspective of active and independent children on the agenda. The argument is that this agenda has been contested by the increased demands for entertaining content due to increased competition among TV channels and due to obeying demands for ever more content to complete programming schedules.