United Kingdom: The Politics of Children’s Television in the Context of BBC Charter Renewal

Abstract

Children's television has rarely occupied a pivotal position in media policy debates around public service broadcasting even though it represents a core part of what the BBC has to offer as part of a remit that is designed to educate, inform and crucially entertain the nation's children. Yet in terms of policy there are always more important issues around impartiality and news, governance and funding, and like attitudes to children themselves, the finer details of children's media policy may seem small and not always particularly significant to policy-­‐ makers concerned with issues of power and influence. Even so the debate around the Government's Green Paper on BBC Charter Review has thrown up heated discussions within the children's production community about the future direction of public service television for children, and how it should be funded. 1 Much of that discussion revolves around the BBC's apparent near monopoly over the commissioning of new UK content, because commercially funded PSBs (ITV, C4 and Five) and commercial channels (run by Disney, Nickelodeon, Turner) have long since retreated almost entirely from the commissioning process. There is of course no shortage of children's programming, which is built on high levels of repeats 2 and imports, that can attract new children every two to three years as each generation grows older and moves on. There are multiple commercial providers in the marketplace, increasingly active across different platforms, but barely any of them are commissioning UK content. In 2013 commercial children's TV channels including those run by Disney, Nickelodeon, ITV (CiTV) and Turner broadcast 136,311 hours of content, but only 111 of these hours were first-­‐run UK originations, a decrease from 281 hours in 2010, with 86% of their output attributable to non-­‐UK sources. 3 This leaves the BBC as the main commissioner of UK content, particularly of drama, news and factual programming. In 2014 the BBC spent £84m on first run originated hours for children, with barely £3m spent by commercially funded public service broadcasters, ITV,