BAFTA has confirmed plans to stop its separate Awards for the children’s media industry, and present them under the banner of the more high-profile Film, Games and TV Awards from 2025.
The end of the separate Children and Young People awards ceremony comes after what BAFTA itself described as a consistent drop in entries and engagement in recent years. The ceremony last took place in November 2022 after a two-year pause.
This move is to booster the British Film and TV Academy’s support for the children’s media industry and its ongoing learning programmes for the next generation of creatives.
A new brand is being formed – Young BAFTA – to incorporate its outreach programmes for children and young people, which will be steered by a new cross-industry Young BAFTA Advisory Group.
The Young BAFTA Advisory Group will be led by BAFTA board member and industry trailblazer Andrew Miller MBE, a disability champion and industry leader across the arts and broadcasting worlds,
Miller started out in children’s television, with Teletubbies producer Anne Wood, presenting Channel 4’s series Boom! and BBC Schools Programmes. As a National Council member of Arts Council England, governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company, former trustee of Welsh National Opera and digital arts agency The Space, founding chair of the BFI Disability Screen Advisory Forum, and the UK Government’s first disability champion for arts & culture, he will bring extensive governance and advocacy experience to the Group.
BAFTA announced today that the Advisory Group will build on previous work, aiming to:
- Elevate children’s content and creatives and give more prominence to the presentation of awards to the sector as part of BAFTA’s high-profile Film, Games and Television Awards ceremonies from 2025, as well as implementing a rolling programme of special award presentations throughout the year.
- Steer BAFTA’s year-round programmes for children and young people to inspire the next generation of creatives – an integral part of BAFTA’s charitable mission.
- Encourage increased industry engagement by helping shape BAFTA’s year-round networking, events and support for creatives and practitioners working in the children’s media industry.
