1. GATHERING MOMENTUM
The problems which are leading to a catastrophic decline in kids’ rich media production in the UK, and consequently to children’s impoverishment in the long term are starting to be noticed by some of the people and bodies which matter in trying to find a solution. Thanks to the efforts of Save Kids’ TV and the hard work put in by organisations such as PACT and the Voice of the Listener and Viewer, there has been some real progress in the last few weeks.
In December members of the SKTV Executive Committee met Ofcom to discuss their plans to review Public Service Broadcasting in the children’s sector. That investigation is under way now, having been brought forward from their intended date of 2010, as Ofcom appreciate that the decrease in advertising revenues being experienced by commercial broadcasters will be made worse by the new High fat, salt and sugar regulations (the so-called junk food ad-ban) and that production of quality TV for kids in the UK will irreparably suffer as a result.
At the same time we met the team who are working on Ofcom’s new Public Service Publisher (PSP) concept, to make the case for including content for children within its remit. Ofcom were keen for SKTV to be involved in the research programme they’ll undertake to consider what’s happening to the children’s market. In fact we were the first group they met, so all that public tub-thumping has paid off! We will of course keep very close to Ofcom’s inquiry and hope to help them understand how serious this crisis is, so that they’ll recommend some strong proposals to overcome it.
One such might be to ensure that kids are included in the PSP fund. Once every channel is exclusively on digital TV, Ofcom believes there will no longer be the leverage on the commercial broadcasters to provide programming like children’s, religion and current affairs in return for the valuable right to transmit on terrestrial TV. The PSP could replace this, but is currently being considered as a fund to finance content for broadband distribution predominantly to 16-24’s. We made the point that there is already market failure in the kids’ area, and discussed with Ofcom the possibilities in the PSP fund to alleviate this and ensure continuity of high quality content for British children.
In a packed meeting at the House of Commons organised by the Voice of the Listener and Viewer earlier this month, SKTV were able to put their view on the BBC being granted a Licence Fee settlement lower than they had hoped. BBC Director General, Mark Thompson, had already publicly stated that a reduced Licence Fee settlement may mean that regional programming and children’s expansion plans will be curtailed, a position he reiterated on BBC News on the day of the Licence Fee announcement. Once again it’s the kids who suffer first. At a time when the industry is in retreat, the BBC should be showing every support it can for children’s output.SKTV submitted evidence to the Parliamentary Committee on Culture Media and Sport this week for their inquiry into public service broadcasting.
A range of supporters contributed to a fully researched document outlining the stresses on commercial revenues, the need for rich locally produced media for kids, and proposals to improve the powers of the regulator to ensure its survival, along with support for children’s inclusion in the PSP. Meanwhile, we’ve become aware that the Minister for Creative Industries and Tourism, Shaun Woodward, has taken a serious interest in the issues we are trying to bring to everyone’s attention. We’ll be pursuing this in the next weeks and months.All of the above are indicators that the first six months of Save Kids’ TV’s life have been highly effective. But we need to keep up the pressure, as there’s still a long way to go.
2. SUSTAINABLE?
Through an unusual series of coincidences SKTV and the anti junk food lobby organisation, Sustain, were thrown into conversation on a student blog which was discussing the effectiveness of campaigning. Never one to ignore the possibilities in happenstance, we arranged to meet Richard Watts, the highly successful organiser of the Sustain campaign, to clarify our relative positions. The meeting was frank and we made it quite clear that our campaign was not directed at the advertising regulations in themselves, but the effects they would have on UK kids’ media diet. Sustain revealed that their anti-advertising campaign would continue, as they consider the Ofcom proposal insufficient and they’ll be turning their attention to other media in future too.
3. NEW IDENTITY
Marketing and branding company Red Central volunteered their services to create a brand identity for Save Kids TV and we now have a new logo and look which will soon be applied to the website design and any other materials we produce. We hope in time that this newsletter will migrate to an HTML format so that we can include graphics and design elements.
4. ITV JANUARY SCHEDULE
Schedules for the CITV block on ITV were released just before Christmas indicating a startling reduction in the number of hours per week of children’s programmes the channel will carry. For the four weeks of January ITV1 will only transmit an hour pf programmes on Saturday mornings and an hour on Sundays. They are still obliged to run an average of 8 hours per week (calculated across the calendar year) and they assured the Guardian that this was only a habitual seasonal “flexing” of the hours. But if they keep it up for any length of time it will be difficult for them to make the time up to 8 hours on average, in the summer for example. Perhaps they’re aiming for an average of 5 - precisely what they asked Ofcom to approve and were refused…. See our news story for more detail.
5. WELCOME AND THANKS
SKTV welcomes our new Treasurer Justin Wilkes who is already busy setting up banking arrangements. Liz Wilton has joined us as Web Editor - with a plan to add the new design features to the site and create a membership sign-up and donations system online. Estelle Hughes has taken over as co-ordinator of the Funding Work-Group which will be researching the detail of how we would propose a fund for children’s content should be set up, making comparisons with other countries’ systems and building our recommendations for the Ofcom Inquiry and its PSP team. SKTV extends a big thank-you to Richard Langridge who pulled together all the early work on the funding question. His work has taken him to Australia and the Far East for a greater part of this year. We wish him luck on his projects there.
Another big thank-you to Jayne Kirkham who took over last year from Rachel Murrell, as co-ordinator of the Policy Group. Both of them and the members of the group put in a huge amount of work in preparing our submission to the Culture Media and Sport Committee.
6. PARENTS IN SUPPORT
While we are making great strides, it remains important that Save Kids’ TV is a broad-based organisation with wide public support. With that in mind we need to extend our outreach to parents and YOU CAN HELP with that by simply sending on the parents letter available on this website http://www.savekidstv.org.uk/action/ to as many people as you can.
Getting them to sign up to the newsletter is the first indication of interest and we hope will lead to a massive membership sign-up when we set that up. We are not planning to charge for membership - we just want anyone who feels sympathy for the campaign to be able to express their support by signing up online.
7. INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Save Kids’ TV is co-producing several events at the upcoming Kidscreen Summit in New York (7-9th February) - one of the principle gatherings of children’s media professionals from around the world. Along with the American Centre for Children and Media, and the Canadian group, Action for Children’s Television, we’ll be organising an industry meeting for some of the senior executives in children’s media to consider why kids’ TV has become the “whipping boy” for so many causes. From obesity to autism it seems TV is to blame now. They’ll be exploring what the industry can do to preserve quality, and to represent its value to parents, educators and of course kids. Nickelodeon veteran Herb Scannell will address the conference on that issue, and Anne Brogan from SKTV’s Executive Committee will give a briefing on the state of the UK market when the new advertising regulations begin to bite.
