British children’s television – on the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Five – has been widely acknowledged as amongst the most creative and innovative in the world. But changes in children’s viewing patterns, and the ban on certain types of advertising to children, have put huge strains on commercial broadcasters.
Despite the large number of channels on offer, UK kids are facing a diminishing choice of programmes as commercial broadcasters retreat from kids commissioning and the BBC scales back.
For commercial channels this is mainly a product of the significant decrease in advertising revenue around children’s programming which makes it no longer commercially viable. As the number of channels has grown, so the advertising market has fragmented. Added to which, restrictions in advertising certain types of food to children has further decreased the available budget for fully-funded quality children’s TV. It means that the days of Worzel Gummidge, Press Gang, Art Attack and My Parents are Aliens on ITV are long gone.
ITV (until 2006 the UK’s second largest kids’ TV commissioner) has closed its internal production department, stripped all the kids’ airtime from ITV1, and spend nothing like the £35 million which supported children’s production only a few years ago. They are deserting the children’s audience because it doesn’t provide enough revenue.
The regulator Ofcom is powerless to stop ITV taking these steps, due to the status of children’s programming laid down in the 2003 Broadcasting Act.
Channel 4 no longer makes programmes for young children and despite aspirations to cater for the 10+ demographic, their funding for a pilot project was withdrawn due to the rapid decrease in advertsising revenue in the recession. Now they aspire to create an interactive service for children over 10, but no new television programming, and with no additional funding.
Channel FIVE has cut back their children’s programming so that they now mainly provide programmes for younger children, in their Milkshake block.
The international channels – Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network – produce some programming in the UK, but not enough to fill the gap, and much of that has to be international in its focus so that it can be used on their channels in other territories.
Meanwhile the BBC is also commissioning fewer drama and factual programmes and seeking more international co-productions to help fund them. The planned move of the Children’s department to Salford, could cause a drain on talent and resources. The BBC is also beginning to display what can happen when a public broadcaster has no official long-term commitment to the children’s audience and little effective competition. The BBC switched its daytime policy so that children’s programme start 15 minutes later to accommodate a game show – The Weakest Link. This severely damaged audience numbers for Newsround and Blue Peter. Is this what we expect from our public service broadcaster? More Anne Robinson, while Grange Hill is axed?
The BBC has become a near-monopoly commissioner of UK produced content. Monopolies are not healthy. They stifle creative competition and lead to questions like “why spend so much when our competitors don’t…?”
The October 2007 Ofcom report on children’s broadcasting revealed that despite the appearance of enormous choice in children’s viewing, the many channels offer only a tiny number of programmes produced in the UK. The figures are shocking. Only 1% of what’s available to our kids is new programming originated here. What makes up the other 99%? Repeats and imports. This isn’t good enough.
The latest Ofcom Public Service Report (July 2009) indicates that UK first-run originated hours of Children’s programmes broadcast on the five main PSB channels and on CBeebies/CBBC fell by 51% between 2004 and 2008 – from 1,887 hours to 919 hours. 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.
British kids are losing out. Their choice is limited and their diet restricted to mainly American imports. No-one would suggest that American programmes are all bad. Many of them are entertaining, stimulating and excellently produced. However, we want to see a mixed diet of programming so that kids get a window on their own world as well as the wider world around them.
Other countries protect their children’s content and the industries which provide them. Now our government needs to do the same by ensuring there is additional public funding for kids’ media content. With a world-beating industry in collapse and UK kids losing out, as their viewing becomes predictable and homogenised, we need new ways of thinking about financing and distributing public service content for children.
There was some hope that the Government would include proposals for a children’s service, or at least a pilot plan, in their 2009 Digital Economy Bill. This did not in the end happen. The Bill concentrates on Broadband roll-out and ensuring the continuation of regional news. Kids’ content has been fogotten apart for a breif reference to CHannel 4’s remit being extended to 10’s plus.
Save Kids’ TV is still proposing a comprehensive solution to the failure of Kids’ PSB . The full proposition is available for download. In early 2010 we met all three political parties and obtained some assurances that they appreciate there is a problem.
Ben Bradshaw, the previous government’s Culture Secretary, went further, and promised that should the regional news pilot plan in the Digital Economy Bill make it through Parliament, his next priority would be using the money from the Licence Fee “digital dividend” to fund additonal public service children’s content.
This was a major success for the campaign, only to be set back by the calling of the election which disrtputed the Digtal Economy Bill’s pasage through Parliament. With the Coservative party opposed to the Regional News pilots, hopes of children’s picking up similar fundig were dashed.
So the campaign continues, with lobbying of the new coaltion government and a proposal to set up an all-party Parliamntary Group dedicated to children’s media.
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