Children were expected to look up to them, and to learn from them. The reality was slightly different, of course. Generations grew up claiming they only watched kids' TV to take the piss, but at least they had a sense of the otherness of adults. Today's presenters are more like teenagers, dressing and speaking in much the same way as their audience. Former presenter Richard Bacon, who was sacked after being photographed doing cocaine, was guilty only of an over-enthusiastic reading of the job description.
Presenters have to seem cool and in touch with youth culture.
There was always something perverse about Tiswas , with its ritual humiliation of people in cages, but it was at least unashamedly childish, and nobody ever thought of Chris Tarrant as a sex symbol. Today there seems to be an inevitable path from kids' TV to men's magazines. Presenters like Jayne Middlemiss, Gail Porter and Cat Deeley are part of the semi-clad celebrity mainstream. At the Young Minds Annual Lecture at the Institute of Child Health on 24 November 2000, Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow complained that TV executives were not doing enough to protect children from racy 'adult' programming. In fact, it seems that kids' TV itself has been stolen by a nation of thirtysomething Ant and Decs.