Greg James, 33, told listeners he had gone to bed “fuming” this week as he ranted about CBBC’s controversial ranking of their children’s shows on his BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show yesterday morning. “The CBBC Twitter account did this thing yesterday where they ranked all of their shows in tiers,” he explained. “They had the ‘Legend tier’, the ‘Top tier,’ then the ‘Mid tier’ and then the ‘Hmmm tier’. The best way to describe it is it’s a b****y mess. It is all over the place.”
Voicing his lighthearted outrage, Greg blasted: “The stuff they’ve decided to put in the ‘Legend tier’, the stuff they’ve put in the ‘Mid tier’ and the stuff they’ve forgotten altogether!
“I tweeted them last night at 9.17… and I said to them, ‘Delete your account for not giving ChuckleVision a god-like tier of it’s own. The BBC would’ve died without that show!’
“I stand by that,” he insisted.
“Also they put Newsround at the bottom – Newsround! It’s one of the most famous things they’ve ever done! Literally telling kids about the world.”
Picking up on another major issue he had with the BBC’s children’s channel’s move, he continued: “And also, they’ve put Steve Backshall and his Deadly 60 show on the bottom as well.
“It’s just a disgrace, that’s what it is,” the Radio 1 favourite exclaimed. “And the rest of Twitter was up in arms as well because everyone’s got their favourite show from when they were a kid.
“They missed off Live and Kicking – didn’t even get a mention! The show that launched the careers of Jamie Theakston and Zoe Ball – Zoe Ball! Literally one of the most famous people in the country.”
On Wednesday night, Greg also tweeted CBBC in view of his 1.6 million followers saying: “And don’t get me started on Backshall’s position. This is a disgrace.”
Greg was backed up on Twitter by Steve, 46, himself, who tweeted: “Too kind Greg, I think me @dickndom @HackerTDog @rickyboleto from Newsround and the Blue Peter tortoise are going to storm CBBC towers.”
The Deadly 60 presenter jokingly added the hashtag: “#takebackcnotrol.”
Greg and Steve were far from being the only people affronted by what was no doubt intended to be a fun tweet from the CBBC to their 37,000 followers, with thousands of comments flooding in from fans calling for their favourite shows to be added to or bumped up the list.
The table showed the likes of 50/50 and The Secret Show in the ‘Legend tier’ and TMI, Newsround and Deadly 60 in the ‘Hmmm tier’.
BBC Breakfast star Dan Walker also fumed at the list, tweeting his 573,000 followers exclaiming: “Where is Jossy’s Giants? Where is Going Live? Where is Byker Grove? How can ChuckleVision be ‘Mid tier’?”
He also quipped: “#NationalDisgrace.”
The CBBC responded to the outrage on Twitter, saying: “This is the kind of passionate debate we want! Obviously we could never choose a favourite child.
“We think every single show on CBBC is a legend+ tier.”
They later joked: “Percentage of the list we got wrong: 68 per cent.
“Percentage of Tracy Beaker on @BBCiPlayer rn: 100 per cent.”(sic)