A Co-ordinated Approach
By Greg Childs
Save Kids’ TV is in the process of convening a meeting of all the groups campaigning for support for children’s media to compare notes on campaign planning. This is in light of the forthcoming party conferences in September, the Parliamentary Select Committee report expected in the Autumn (on the future of public service broadcasting, in which children’s has been a major feature) and the Ofcom children’s PSB report in October. While each of the many organisations involved has their own perspectives and skill set, Save Kids’ TV has been working to create links between bodies as diverse as the Voice of the Listener and Viewer, Action for Children’s Arts, PACT and the actors’ union Equity, as we all strive for the same end.
One of the organisations held a very successful event on the 25th July, to which Parliamentarians and their researchers were invited. The jointly sponsored PACT/Social Market Foundation Conference in Westminster got to the heart of the problem briskly and there was a real sense that members of the Commons and Lords were really beginning to notice the problem and seek solutions. John McVay from PACT outlined their proposals for a tax-credit system which would alleviate some of the funding problems for children’s programme-makers in the short term. The well-known presenter and producer Floella Benjamin made an impassioned speech which comprehensively covered not just the problems a valuable industry being left to wither, but a bleak future for the cultural entitlement and choices for UK Kids – and how this would impact on society as a whole. Save Kids’ TV members dominated the Q&A from the conference floor, leaving the assembled legislators in no doubt that there was a crisis for which practical solutions need to be found right now.
