Edward Barnes (television executive)

Children's television

Edward Barnes was a co-creator of Blue Peter in and the programme's assistant director in 1958. Later he was a producer of the series. It was Barnes, with colleague Biddy Baxter, who in late 1962 toured London pet shops after the show's mongrel puppy died and a clandestine substitute (soon known as Petra) was needed so as not to needlessly upset young viewers.^[1]

Barnes was the originator of Newsround in April 1972, originally known as John Craven's Newsround, the longstanding children's television news programme. He was deputy head of children's television at the BBC at the time.^[2] Newsround was created to explain horrifying stories to children that would not be comprehended equally well on the main news. It was met with resistance when he formulated it, and was a controversial idea for some of his colleagues.^[2] Newsround in 1986 would be the first to bring a horrifying story first on the British television - the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on 28 January 1986.

Barnes' wife was the writer Dorothy Smith, who was a contributor to Blue Peter. The couple, who had three children, were married from 1950 to 1992, when Smith died..^[3]