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.
Channel 4 no longer makes programmes for young children (5 -10 year olds) and ITV (until recently the UK’s second largest kids’ TV commissioner) has almost completely ceased all children’s production. They are deserting the children’s audience because it doesn’t provide enough revenue. Channel FIVE has cut back their children’s programming too.
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.
Recent announcements from ITV and C4 suggest that there will be some new spend on children’s programming in the future. ITV has said that it will begin to commission again but the spending is likely to be much smaller than in the past. C4 have announced a new £10m initiative for young teens spread over three years. Both developments have happened since the start of the campaign to Save Kids’ TV. And, although they are welcome, the overall trend in both spend and the hours of original UK content commissioned for children is down.
Meanwhile the BBC has imposed budget cuts which will affect the range of programmes it can produce for children – so the production industry is being hit with a double blow.
And when it comes to airtime, there are also cuts. ITV has severely have abandoned their children’s schedule in the afternoons so that they can compete with C4’s aggressive scheduling of game-shows. Now they only show children’s programmes on Sunday mornings and in the run up to Christmas!
They claim that their children’s channel will provide a substantial diet of programmes instead, but without new commissions CITV has become a channel of repeats and cheap imported programmes. The regulator Ofcom is powerless to stop ITV taking these steps as it cannot insist on a specific number of hours, nor can it stipulate how much a broadcaster must spend on its public service children’s output, or the sort of programmes they schedule, whether they make them or acquire them from other territories, or when they transmit them.
Until recently FIVE made some of the most challenging and interesting programmes for older children – including factual and documentary output in the great tradition of public service broadcasting. They have now cut their commitment to pre-school content only.
And recently the BBC switched its daytime policy so that children’s programme start 15 minutes later to accommodate – guess what? Another game show - The Weakest Link! Is this what we expect from our “public service” broadcaster? More Anne Robinson, and Grange Hill axed?
The big problem with only marginal production on other channels is that leaves the BBC as a near-monopoly supplier. Monopolies are not healthy. They lead to questions like - “why do we need to put out programmes for children when we could compete with daytime shows instead?” and “Why do we spend so much on children’s programmes when our competitors only spend a fraction of that?” The BBC is under budget pressures of its own, and recently the Director of BBC Vision made it clear that the future of children’s programmes on BBC ONE was under question.
Cut-backs and an obsessive drive for ratings will see children once again the losers.
The October 2007 Ofcom report on children’s broadcasting in the UK has revealed that despite the appearance of enormous choice in children’s viewing, the many channels available offer only a tiny number of programmes produced in the UK, with British kids’ interests at their core. The figures are shocking – only 1% of what’s available to our kids is new programming made in the UK. What makes up the 99%? Repeats and imports and this isn’t good enough for our kids.
British kids will be the losers if their choice is diminished 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. What we argue for, however, is 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.
