Mounting a passionate defence, Alice Cahn, a director at the US PBS network (which had just acquired Teletubbies), dismissed the criticisms as "ludicrous". Ada Haug, head of pre-school programmes at Norway's NRK, accused Teletubbies of being "the most market-oriented children's programme concept I've ever seen". "Regressive" and "vaguely evil" were just some of the verbal shots fired. "Teletubbies: are they wising up or dumbing down?" posed the moderator at the summit's first session. The most comforting children's books ever But Tinky Winky, Laa-Laa, Dipsy and Po, with their proto chatter and penchant for repetition, had experts worried. Talk of wibbly-wobbly bottoms and Tubby Toast had swept the nation. It was a runaway hit with both adults and children. The preschool show, created by Ragdoll Productions for the BBC, had begun airing in the UK a year earlier, documenting the antics of four giant, alien-looking babies with antennae atop their heads and televisions in their tummies. Various topics were up for discussion – funding, regulation, new media – but one word was on everybody's lips: Teletubbies. They had come for the second ever World Summit on Television for Children. In March 1998 more than 1,500 television bigwigs from 82 different countries descended on the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London.
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