Making a Commotion
By Greg Childs
Save Kids’ TV was born at last year’s Showcomotion Children’s Media Conference. In the final session organisations like PACT and producers from across the kids media landscape focused on the melt-down facing their industry and realised that there was almost no public awareness of the effects that funding restrictions were going to bring to their kids viewing choices in the near future.
So Save Kids’ TV was well represented at the fourth annual Showcomotion conference on the 6th and 7th July at the Showroom Cinemas in Sheffield. Showcomotion is really the only time when all the various contributors to content provision for kids in the UK come together under one roof to discuss the creative, business and policy issues which affect them.
Several of the articles in this newsletter reflect the fact that the conference covered a great deal of ground of relevance to the campaign and enabled Save Kids’ TV to extend its connections further through conversations with key players in the industry and through the fantastic industry press coverage the debates and discussions received – for example an almost entire issue of Broadcast magazine dedicated to children’s issues.
Jana Bennett, Director of BBC Vision, expressed support for new forms of funding for children’s media production in her opening keynote. This set the tone for the conference which throughout was seeking new partnerships and new ways of creating content for kids which could maintain the quality and range of their provision – and of course support this uniquely creative and up-to-now successful media industry sector.
James Thickett, leading the Ofcom children’s PSB review team, outlined their perceptions from the research now concluded and about to be presented to the Ofcom Management and Board. It was clear that there has been a significant decrease in spending on production and that there were few prospects of that improving in the near future. James revealed that Ofcom will be presenting a series of possible “policy interventions” when they publish their report and hope that this will further stimulate the debate on how public service kids’ content can survive.
John McVay, Chief Executive of the producers’ alliance, PACT, outlined their plan to propose to the government a system of tax credits for UK based children’s television production, after the model used in the film industry. PACT sees this as the best short term remedy to the funding crisis, and believe it be achievable in the near future if the Treasury support it.
What became clear through the conference is that international co-production and the efforts of the international children’s channels to produce in the UK could provide some additional funding, but nothing like what the industry lost when ITV left the market. And it was also clear that any programmes produced under these conditions would inevitably have some of their “Britishness” diluted by the need to please more than one market. IPTV, and partnerships with online and games companies were also not a comprehensive answer to the troubles of the kids industry. All of these areas and others had something to offer and in the long run there will be a shake-out in the way things are done. But the key to a bright future for British kids content remains the ability to fund and find an outlet for professionally produced long form narrative content specifically made with UK kids in mind.
The conference concluded with the principle partners in the campaign outlining their plans for lobbying in the future, and Anna Home for Save Kids’ TV revealing our plan to work with a professional digital communications consultancy to prepare a long term strategy for the future of children’s public service content. For more detail on that see: A new approach to public service content for kids in this newsletter.
The tone of the Showcomotion Conference was more upbeat than the doom and gloom of last year, as the industry realised the full implications of the advertising ban and ITV’s exit from the children’s scene. But any optimism is tinged with a strong sense that there’s a long road ahead before we can be sure that great content for British kids has survived the current crisis.
