We need to persuade the people in power that the quality and range of children’s screen-based media matter, that funding needs to be found to replace the commercial revenue which has been lost, and a mechanism needs to be put in place as a matter of urgency for the efficient distribution of the funds and the content.
Save Kids’ TV has already campaigned successfully for the crisis in children’s television to be recognised. We were instrumental in pushing Ofcom to an earlier than planned review of children’s broadcasting which resulted in the October 2007 Ofcom report. This was a research-based analysis which identifies the huge problems facing the UK children’ production industry and revealed that the British public are concerned about the decline in viewing choice for their kids.
Save Kids’ TV’s response to the report is a comprehensive plan to ensure children’s media continues to be funded into the future.
Ofcom’s Second Public Service Broadcasting Review was published in April 2008. It looks at the future of kids’ television along with all other genres threatened by the PSB funding decline. The report recognises that children’s is the “canary in the coalmine” for all the other PSB genres. Digital switch-over will bring a completely new regulatory environment in which it will be very difficult to force any commercial broadcaster to stick with their public service commitments.
In response SKTV re-iterated the need for an online service which encompasses not only fully-funded programme commissions in a video-on-demand service (of drama, factual and entertainment programmes made in the UK, about, with and by UK Kids) but also allows children to interact, participate and contribute (to user-generated content) and to join in a community around the content. This radical new approach to distributing and funding kids’ media content is now at the heart of our proposal to government in the final phase of the PSB decision–making process.
On the 21st January Ofcom issued its final report on the future of public service content which included its recommendations to the Government. While there were references to the SKTV proposal and to the need to ensure continued provision for children, which was extremely supportive, the language used in the report is still not definitive. When it comes to the recommendations around kids’ content the report suggests the Government “could” include children’s content in the remit of the proposed “Second Public Service Provider” – rather than “should”. Similarly it suggests the Government “could consider” setting up a separately funded body to commission children’s content if the Second Public Service Provider” does not fulfil the need.
Save Kids’ TV has been in discussions with the DCMS (Dept for Culture, Media and Sport) about the next steps. Lord Carter’s “Digital Britain” is the DCMS review which will decide the fate of a wide range of services – including public service content for children. They have issued an interim report (January 2009) which stressed the need for plurality in children’s content provision. Save Kids’ TV was encouraged by the DCMS to submit a more definitive version of our original proposition for a funded stand-alone service for kids.
This document was sent to the DCMS on the 30th April 2009 and will be considered for inclusion in the final Digital Britain Report which will be issued in mid June.
The final Digital Britain Report is vital for the future of public service content in this country - with kids as no exception. The report will lead to legisalation in the Autumn so it’s vital that children’s content features significantly and definitiveley. We have asked the government to give serious consideration to support a stand-alone service for children, as described in our model, publicaly fuinded in partf, and partnered with other public service bodies in education and culture, and with commercial etities such as existing broadcasters and the games inustry. If the governemnt’s plan is to set up a new version of Channel 4 as the alternative public service broadcaster, we have made it clear that we would expect to see such a body mandated to carry children’s programmes for all age-ranges, with stipulated levels of outrput and funding, and no way of wriggling out of their committment as has been the case recently with ITV.
In essence - any new public service provider has to have kids content written into its DNA!
This follows up Save Kids’ TV’s strong representations to the BBC Trust’s review of children’s services. SKTV made the point that to safeguard their relationship with the younger audience the BBC needed to make a much firmer commitment to children’s content as a core element in public broadcasting (the way it does with news and regional programmes). SKTV also suggested that ring-fenced funding for children’s and youth content by the BBC would be the best way of expressing this.
