Access key 0 - Accessibility, Access key 2 - Jump to content, Access key 7 - Jump to navigation
Skip To Content | Skip To Navigation
 

Home > Media and Analysts > Speeches and Presentations > 2007 > Jul > Children’s programming


06|07|07

Showcomotion - Ofcom’s review of children’s programming

The slides for this presentation are available via the link below.

Ofcom’s review of children’s programming slides

Good morning.

I’d first like to thank the organisers for inviting Ofcom to participate on such a distinguished panel and at such an important time for children’s television.

Children’s television arouses enormous passions in this country, and this has become increasingly evident over the last 12 months.

Over the next few minutes I would like to do three things.

First, set out some of the market context behind recent changes in the industry – some of the core facts and figures, if you like, to set out the basis for an informed debate.

Second, to explain Ofcom’s existing powers regarding children’s TV and clarify some of the misconceptions about the extent of these powers.

Third, to update you on the progress of the review we currently have underway, and some of the issues we will be examining when we publish in the Autumn.

Can I just say at this point that the material I am sharing with you is just some of the emerging evidence coming out of our work. It represents our early thinking and we are in the process of refining and validating the evidence before we publish in the early Autumn.

[Slide 2] Children in the UK now have a greater choice of media they can use at home than ever before.

This chart, taken from our children’s tracker shows that while television is still the dominant media platform in terms of regular usage, the internet, gaming and mobile phones are increasingly competing for children’s attention.

And all the evidence shows that it’s older children who are at the vanguard of this change – 73% of 12-15 year olds claim to regularly use a mobile phone, with two thirds regularly using the internet.

[Slide 3] As a result, children are watching less television than they used to.

BARB shows viewing among children down from just under 17 hours per week in 2002 to 15.5 hours in 2006. This compares to over 25 hours a week for adults.

This trend is especially important for 12-15 year olds, who we estimate are spending around 12 hours per week on the internet. 8-11 year olds are spending 7 hours per week on the internet.

[Slide 4] The good news is that while children’s viewing is in decline, this is mostly accounted for by a fall in children’s viewing of adult programming.

The proportion of children’s viewing to children’s programmes has increased since 2002, to around 30% of total viewing, or 4.7 hours per week.

[Slide 5] These changes in viewing habits reflect the increasing choice of channels featuring children’s programming.

There are now over 30 channels offering children’s programmes, two thirds of which are dedicated children’s channels on digital platforms. This has increased rapidly in recent years from 12 in 1998, and reflects the growing number of households with children converting to digital. In 2006, 91% of households with children were multichannel homes.

[Slide 6] And given this greater choice in digital homes, children are responding by shifting their viewing habits away from the traditional children’s programmes on BBC One, BBC Two and ITV – to dedicated children’s channels available on Freeview, cable and satellite.

In March we published our PSB Annual Report which showed that 82% of children’s viewing in 2006 was to dedicated children’s channels such as CBBC, CBeebies, Nickelodeon and Disney – increasing from 55% in 2002.

Terrestrial PSB broadcasters accounted for only 18% of viewing in 2006 compared to 45% in 2002.

[Slide 7] And as a result of the sheer choice of channels available, viewing has fragmented.

Within multichannel households no single dedicated children’s channel dominates overall viewing as this chart illustrates.

CBeebies and Disney take the highest share of viewing in multichannel homes, but this is still less than 4% of the total.

[Slide 8] This fragmentation of viewing is reflected in broadcaster revenues from children’s programmes.

This chart shows our estimate of revenues generated from children’s programming between 2001 and 2006. It shows licence fee funding alongside commercial revenues from advertising and subscriptions.

The significant increase in revenues between 2001 and 2006 was driven largely by the BBC’s investment in its children’s channels.

However since 2003, while licence fee funding has remained broadly flat, commercial revenues have fallen from a peak of £240m to £158m in real terms, a decline of about a third, although still higher than 2001 levels.

[Slide 9] At the same time, overall spend on original programming by the PSBs has fallen – from £110 million per year in 1998 to just under £90 million in 2006.

However since its peak in 2002 spend has fallen by over a third in real terms.

As you will all be aware, a large part of this decline has been down to ITV, who have been gradually scaling back commitments to children’s programming over the past two years.

And as Jana Bennett already mentioned, the BBC are the only broadcaster to have increased spend over this period, through the launch of CBBC and CBeebies.

[Slide 10] While the contribution of commercial dedicated children’s channels remains an important part of overall delivery of first run UK programming, spend on first run UK originations by these channels remained largely stable over the period, at around 10% of the total.

So what is Ofcom going to do?

First, it’s important to understand what the legislation allows us to do

The 2003 Communications Act requires broadcasters to monitor their own performance for types of PSB programming which fall within tier 3 of regulation. Children’s is in tier 3, along with religious programmes, arts, education, science, drama and others.

Being in tier 3 means that Ofcom has no powers to ensure a set number of hours broadcast.

Ofcom can only offer guidance to the PSB broadcasters on the number of hours of children’s programmes they propose to deliver in their annual statements, and even this is subject to there being a significant change in the overall character of PSB service.

This effectively means that the PSB broadcasters themselves must decide how best to deliver children’s programming.

So when ITV consulted Ofcom about a decrease in the number of hours of children’s television last year, the broadcaster had a duty to take account of Ofcom’s opinions but its permission was neither sought nor needed.

However, Ofcom does have an obligation to review and report on the extent to which the PSB Purposes have been fulfilled, with a view to maintaining and strengthening the quality of PSB. One of the purposes is that the PSBs taken together include a suitable range of high quality and original programmes for children and young people as a whole.

So our first job is to do just that – not to look at whether what individual channels are doing is enough, but to assess delivery across the market as a whole.

And we also have a clear framework for assessing delivery of children’s programming.

The output of PSB broadcasters is defined by a set of purposes and characteristics which we first put forward in our review of PSB in 2004.

We proposed four purposes of PSB:

We also recommended six characteristics of PSB:

These purposes and characteristics are the main way we assess how well PSB children’s programming is being delivered overall.

[Slide 14] Our PSB Annual Report showed that parents overwhelmingly recognise the importance of the PSB purposes and characteristics to children’s programming.

80% feel it is important that children’s programmes should help children learn and develop.

76% feel it is important that programmes are well made and of a high quality

75% feel that children’s programmes should help children understand what is going on in the world

And although it was the least important characteristic, nearly two thirds of parents felt that there should be enough programmes made in the UK for their children to watch

This brings me on to our review.

As I mentioned earlier, we are required by the Act to review whether there is sufficient quantity and range of high quality, original programming for children and young people.

Our review aims to address a number of key questions. The core questions are:

In researching children we intend to focus on four distinct age groups.

Our research will include:

At this stage in our review, I’d like to emphasise that there isn’t a simple answer.

Children’s television is a complex and diverse programming ecology with a range of dependant factors contributing to the overall picture. As our report will show, there are a range of business models in the industry reflecting different types of programming and audiences. Our findings need to reflect this.

Against this transition, we need to recognise that children are not a homogeneous group, that different age groups have vastly different wants and needs and are served in different ways. We have already seen the impact of media consumption habits among older age groups.

We also need to consider that change is a given as more and more households adopt digital television, with an increasing number of children having access to digital TV in their bedrooms.

And finally, and I’m sure this is something I don’t need to emphasise to this audience, parents and children have a highly tuned sense of the issues around children’s television, especially PSB purposes and characteristics. We have explored attitudes to a range of subjects, from the perspective of both groups as consumers and citizens. We have encountered a very clear and very sophisticated understanding of the issues.

In terms of outcomes, first we need to assess objectively where the problem lies. Today I have shared with you some of our very early analysis, but there is much more work being done.

Then we need to ask ourselves two questions.

The first is whether the BBC, together with commercial providers, is enough to guarantee the future provision of high quality, UK originated children’s programming? In answering this question, we need to address the question of plurality of provision, which Jana Bennett alluded to earlier.

If we do not believe that the BBC and the market can guarantee future provision of children’s PSB, then we need to consider what forms of public intervention might be appropriate to secure this in the future.

In our many discussions with industry stakeholders to date, we have received a wide range of views on these issues.

And finally, in terms of timing:

We aim to publish the findings of the review in the early Autumn, along with options for possible policy approaches.

Then we will seek formal feedback from stakeholders.

This will be incorporated into the first phase of Ofcom’s wider review of PSB, which has been brought forward from its 2009 start date partly because of the issues being raised by this review. We will include these views in our final recommendations.

The Government has also announced a review of PSB funding.

With all this in mind, it is worth emphasisng that our review will not offer any short term fixes. It will feed into the wider PSB debate, but we also hope it will be a conduit for a serious exchange of ideas on the future of children’s television in the UK and how best to ensure that UK children continue to receive a wide range of high quality and original programming.

Thank you.


Back to top Back to top


Further information

Help

Keep up-to-date