Save Kids’ TV is a coalition of parents, producers, artists, educators and others passionate about screen-based media for children, and concerned for its future in the face of intense financial pressures. We campaign to persuade politicians and the UK Government to acknowledge the cultural and educational value of children’s television, and to protect it from destruction.
LATEST NEWS:
Save Kids’ TV has made representations to the BBC Trust in relation to the BBC’s Strategy Review, which envisages additional funding for Children’s programmes. We feel the proposed £10m extra from a potential budget of £600m is just not enough! Download our letter to the Chairman of the BBC Trust.
OUR CAMPAIGN
Save Kids’ TV is campaigning for a new online and broadcast service for children – with adequate funding to provide high-quality, UK-produced drama, factual and entertainment content missing from broadcast schedules and websites. The service would also be an online community for UK children, providing interaction and participation around content made by professionals and the kids themsleves.
It would be fun, educational and inspirational, inclusive and empowering – just what kids need to face the world today.
Some people think that children are well served by the many channels providing programmes for them, and the websites they access every day. But few realise that most of the programmes are imports or repeats. and many of the websites are starved of adequate funding. Kids still need and deserve a media diet as rich and stimulating as previous generations enjoyed!
The Snowman, animated by John Coates, commissioned by Channel 4
Kids need to hear their own voices and see their own stories in content which attaches them to their roots and gives them the confidence to understand the wider world. It’s one of their basic rights, and it’s our duty to provide them with content which helps them become engaged citizens. More on our beliefs and aims.
The broadcasting regulator Ofcom has revealed that less than 1% of the programmes shown on children’s channels in the UK is newly made here. Ofcom also identified that between 2004 and 2008 UK-made first-run hours of Children’s programmes broadcast on the five main public service channels and CBeebies/CBBC fell by 51%.
In January 2010 a report by the House of Lords Select Comittee on Commmunications re-emphasised the decline: from 1,887 originated hours in 2004 to 919 hours in 2008. Investment in first-run originated children’s programming by these channels fell by just over a third in the same period, with spend by the commercial PSBs down from £42m to £11m.
These decreases are mainly the result of advertising revenue for children’s programmes shrinking rapdily and to some extent the BBC cutting its budgets. Children’s programme production in the UK, once the envy of the world, has decreased to a depressingly low level.
Save Kids’ TV welcomes programmes from all over the world. But the majority of programmes which children watch every day are made inthe USA. We believe it is vital for the cohesion of UK culture and society that our kids hear their own voices as well as American ones.
The disappearance of children’s programmes from mainstream channels like ITV1 is a symptom of the wider failure of Public Service Television in the UK. Save Kids’ TV is allied to the Citizens Coalition for Public Service Broadcasting. The campaign aims to halt the decline in public service content and programming by raising awareness among MPs and other decision makers about the decrease in original content for a range of groups in society – including children – and the threat this poses to civil society.
Save Kids’ TV has, with its allies, had considerable success in bringing these issues to public and political attention. Lobbying has continued throughout 2009 and early 2010, including numerous submissions of the Save Kids’ TV Proposal to the Digtal Britain review.
You can read more about the background to the campaign on our info pages.
We need your support to continue the campaign. Donations are welcome, but at the very least please sign up for the SKTV newsletter to register your interest and encourage others to do the same.
Philip Pullman, patron of Save Kids’ TV
“Children need the best of everything, and that includes the best of television – not the cheapest. Save Kids’ TV is working to make sure they get it.”
