BBC Learning Zone

This time last year BBC Learning Zone was still airing on BBC2. This year however it hasn't appeared. I thought there might have been a short delay for the start of the school term before it came back on air. However after contacting the BBC (who said keep checking the listings) I'm realising that BBC Learning Zone may now officially be over after 20 years

I thought it only come back for the exam season?

I guess there's just no need for it now. Everything else has gone over the past decade or so, OU and Schools programmes are long gone, from both BBC and Channel 4. Maybe it's suprising the Learning Zone continued as long as it did, really!

Website is still available:
bbc.co.uk/learningzone

However it has moved now from what it used to be to effectively a modern Schools TV service, albeit at 4am.
Shame really but since it dropped or lost the Open University programming a few years ago, it was never the same.

Still it had a presentation package that outlasted everything else

They stopped airing exam programmes (the 2 hour ones anyway) few years ago. Up until now they've just been airing primary school programmes.

Most recently the only 'programmes' were edit downs of documentaries and the odd drama to fit the curriculum, the only specially commissioned item being 'Ten Pieces'. With tech and licensing/copyright agreements with eductional establishments teachers can do a much easier bespoke and legal job themselves. Notwithstanding the myriad of other AV resources available too. Some Unis are also preparing school materials either officially or unofficially now as well.

If it has indeed been axed, it is a huge shame.

I still remember the days when we were taken into the TV rtoom to watch stuff live. Compelte with the gold old ITV Schools rotomotion.

Didn't some of the ultra rarely used seasonal ident variations start making sudden reappearances last year? With hindsight, should that have been interpreted as an anoraky acknowledgement of the end being nigh, by someone within presentation who cared enough to bother?

Or pure coincidence?

The BBC are still broadcasting schools programmes, albeit on radio: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio/programmes/schedules/2015/11/16 which I think goes out on the digital versions of Radio 4.

But if the Learning Zone has gone for good, then for the record, it looks like its last programmes went out in the early hours of 24th July, finishing with a two minute programme about stoats: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/schedules/england/2015/07/23

which would make this the last known sighting of the ident:



I'm not sure I've seen this version before, but there are a couple of things which really date it...



It's Netscape Navigator - I can't quite tell whether it's 1.1N or 2.0, but certainly mid-90s vintage. The website address in the bar is http://www.learning_zone.co.uk (I'm not sure that Nominet have ever allowed underscores in domain names)

What do you mean dated, that looks like the most hi-tech web browser I've ever seen, certainly nothing like Netscape Navigator from 1995