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06|12|07

Westminster Media Forum - The Future of Children's Television Programming

Peter Phillips, Partner, Strategy and Market Development

Thanks for that kind introduction and to the Westminster Media Forum for hosting this seminar today. And thank you all for coming along.

It’s an important event for us, and an opportunity to hear your views on the findings that we published in our October discussion paper on the future of children’s television programming.

Today is the festival of St Nicholas, the patron saint of children. So it’s a fitting day for this seminar.

We have two sessions today to debate the future characteristics of public service broadcasting for children and the possible policy approaches which might address the issues identified by our research.

We have a panel to kick off each session. They are only allowed to speak for a precise 4 minutes each so there is maximum time for you to share your views.

Before that let us remind ourselves why public service broadcasting and, more particularly, public service broadcasting for children is important.

80 years ago, Lord Reith simply and elegantly captured the purpose of public service broadcasting. He said it needed to be informing, educating and entertaining.

Reith’s vision still has resonance today. But, in 2007, in a more complex media environment, we need to be a bit more sophisticated about how we describe the purpose of public service broadcasting.

So what is public service broadcasting in the 21st Century?

For me, it’s broadcasting that seeks to do more than satisfy immediate consumer demand.

Already the market does that - and does it very well. Whether your kids are fans of Disney’s Hannah Montana, Nickelodeon’s Sponge Bob Square Pants or Cartoon Network’s The Cramp Twins.

But public service broadcasting is different. It seeks to promote a wider good for individuals, for families and for the public at large. Within that, it has four main purposes:

• informing our understanding of the world,
• stimulating knowledge and learning,
• reflecting our cultural identity, and
• representing diversity and alternative viewpoints.

And we know that people throughout the UK continue to value broadcasting which delivers those purposes.

This applies equally to public service broadcasting content for children.

Our research showed that more than four out of five parents rated the purposes I just listed as important. That’s overwhelming support.

And that’s in a world where 90% of households with children have multichannel TV.

UK originated programming plays an absolutely central role in delivering those public service purposes.

Only UK programming reports current affairs fully in our country. Only UK programming reflects and strengthens our cultural identity. And only UK programming reflects our lives and teaches us about the lives of others in our country.

That’s not to say that there isn’t value in programmes from overseas – there is. But its role in delivering the PSB purposes is of necessity more limited.

It’s important to think about the role of the non-PSB market in providing UK originated programming. In 2006, about 10% of total spend on first-run UK originated hours of children’s programmes was contributed by the commercial dedicated children’s channels.

That’s a valuable contribution to the UK children’s programming ecology, but it has remained relatively constant over recent years. And it is not enough to meet the fall in spend by the commercial PSBs – ITV, Channel 4 and Five - which has halved in real terms since 1998.

Let me be very clear about what we see as the main drivers of this decline in spend.

Firstly, it’s audience fragmentation across channels. When children turn on the television today, they have a vast array of programmes available to them, especially if they have cable or satellite. At least twelve new children’s channels were launched between 2001 and 2007.

So the child audience is no longer centred around the five main public service broadcasters. Instead, the audience is spread across the five main channels plus twenty five dedicated channels. That’s a lot of competition.

Secondly, it’s fragmentation across new platforms and services.

We did research on children’s media consumption habits for the review and found that television is still the primary medium for most children. But there is no doubt that, particularly in the older age groups, the internet is catching up fast. Amongst 12-15 year olds, their weekly time spent using the internet has more than doubled between 2005 and 2007, from 4.6 hours to 10.5 hours. That’s a dramatic change. So there’s competition for a child’s time too.

The main driver of the fall in spend is not - as some have suggested - the food advertising restrictions.

The decline in spend on original children’s programmes by the commercial PSBs began fully 6 years before the introduction of the HFSS restrictions in April this year. Their spend has fallen every year, year on year, since 2001. From £62m, to £27m.

We will monitor the affect of the HFSS restrictions, but the evidence is already clear that it is not the main cause of this decline. It’s audience fragmentation due to the explosion in digital choice which has been the consistent driver.

The framework for regulating children’s programming set out in the Communications Act anticipated the challenges that broadcasters might face due to audience fragmentation in the lead up to digital switchover. The Act doesn’t provide quotas for public service programming for children, but instead allows ITV, Channel 4 and Five more flexibility to decide what programmes they broadcast. The same framework exists for genres like science, history and arts.

Under this framework, the public service broadcasters have looked for ways to reduce the costs associated with their public service obligations.

The opportunity cost of broadcasting a children’s programme is high on a mixed genre channel – it is content aimed at a very small potential audience. So it’s not surprising that children’s has been one of the first public service genres to be tested under the Communications Act regime.

UK origination is one important aspect of public service broadcasting. But people also love the diversity in public service broadcasting that we have today.

In the UK, our approach for five decades has been to secure a plurality of voices in the delivery of public service television – multiple public service broadcasters, not just the BBC, each bringing a different perspective.

Children’s programming has been no different. The arrival of ITV initiated competitive provision of public service broadcasting in children’s programming, offering an alternative to BBC. And this is one of the reasons why ITV’s reduced role in the children’s market is a concern.

But it’s worth taking a step back to think about why plurality has played an important role in today’s public service broadcasting ecology.

One of the benefits that plural provision within public service broadcasting achieves is that the competition it provides strengthens the overall quality of public service output.

Which is why the notion of competition for quality was the central outcome of Ofcom’s first Review of Public Service Broadcasting.

But competition for quality isn’t the only benefit of plurality. Plurality also provides viewers with choice and a range of voices, styles and approaches.

In children’s, t he BBC has always played a core role and does a great job. Parents are overwhelmingly satisfied with BBC provision , particularly CBeebies.

Our research highlights the value that parents place on a range of voices in children’s public service programming.

Despite the fact that parents love the BBC, they perceive it as having a particular tone of voice, and see value in having public service programmes for children from a broadcaster with a different tone.

If diversity of viewpoints in public service programming for children is a goal, then a range of voices is an important way of achieving this outcome.

This is a question that goes to the heart of the PSB Review. It’s a question that we need to ask not only for children’s but also for other types of public service content – news, current affairs, drama and comedy.

So our discussion paper has asked for your views on the role of plurality in the provision of children’s content. And these views will help inform the appropriate policy response to both public service broadcasting overall and to children’s.

A couple of the policy options suggested by stakeholders are relevant here. Some have suggested a new dedicated public service channel for children. Others, including Channel 4, have suggested that Channel 4 may have a role to play in the provision of public service content for older children.

The CMS Select Committee report on public service content recently published also voiced concern that the BBC should not be left as the only supplier of public service content in any area of programming, including children’s. And it suggested public funding, through the licence fee or general taxation, be made available to all broadcasters on a contestable basis to address this.

There is another important point to make here about the role of the BBC here. As our report noted, the BBC’s own long term commitments to children’s programming are by no means guaranteed. The current BBC service licences could, at least in theory, allow it to reduce its output and spend significantly below current levels. While this is a matter for the BBC Trust, we believe that tightening the role of the BBC in children’s programming should be considered.

And we should also be clear about exactly where our research identified concerns.

Our analysis doesn’t suggest problems in every area of children’s programming. Our analysis disaggregated the children’s market by age group. And it identified two very specific problems – not issues everywhere. Let me take you through the headlines by age group, starting with pre-school children.

All the evidence suggests that pre-school children are well served by the programming currently available to them.

The BBC slots on BBC One and Two, CBeebies and Five’s Milkshake! strand represent core provision for pre-school children by the public service broadcasters.

Pre-school children can also watch programming on a growing number of commercial pre-school focused channels including Nick Jr and Playhouse Disney, as well as the Milkshake! strand on Five Life.

The parents we spoke to through our research felt all these channels offer high quality and engaging programmes.

While there was some evidence that spend on UK originated programming for pre-school children is falling, there is also some evidence to suggest that parents of pre-school children felt country of origin was less important for pre-school children compared to the 8-12s because they are often set in imaginary worlds and in some cases internationally produced programmes are re-versioned for broadcast in the UK.

Our evidence also suggests that younger children – 6 to 8 year olds - are broadly well served by current programming.

However, for younger children, levels of satisfaction with programming did vary depending on what type of television parents had access to. Parents and children in cable and satellite households were broadly happy with provision. Those in analogue households were concerned about the limited range of programmes their children could watch. In digital terrestrial households, younger children valued the range and choice provided by CBBC and CITV. The concern was about lack of availability of programming after 7pm, when children are most likely to watch. CBBC’s proposal to run to 9pm would be one way of addressing this concern.

Again, parents were less concerned about the country of origin of programming for children of this age group.

So where did we identify problems?

Firstly, for older children – 9 to 12s, parents felt that there was not enough UK drama and factual programming aimed at this age group. And they also felt that country of origin was important for drama and factual programmes in order to help children learn about the range and richness of cultures across the UK.

The children we spoke to didn’t think country of origin was as important as their parents did. Children seek out quality, engaging programmes no matter what their origin, with children mentioning The Suite Life of Zack and Cody alongside UK programmes like Tracey Beaker. That said, most older children had a clear idea about where dramas took place and some did see the benefits of UK programming for similar reasons to their parents.

Of all the types of children’s programmes, it’s understandable that drama and factual are the areas where we see a shortfall in provision. These are the least economically viable for producers to produce, relying on a greater proportion of the production budget to be contributed by broadcasters.

With a few exceptions, like Nickelodeon’s Genie in the House and Cartoon Network’s My Spy Family, it’s often the BBC with the budget to produce UK dramas. And commercial channels’ budgets tend to support dramas with potential for global sale and therefore less potential to reflect UK specific cultures and values.

Factual programmes on the other hand tend to be less expensive to produce than dramas, but they don’t have the exportability, repeatability or secondary revenues available to them that some other types of programmes do. As a result of ITV’s reduction in commissioning and also the discontinuation of Five’s Shake! strand, the BBC is already the core provider of factual programmes for older children in the UK.

Secondly, young teenagers – the 13-15s – who have traditionally had little content aimed specifically at them. They often watch content aimed at adults or, less frequently, programmes for younger children.

And our research indicates the least satisfaction with delivery of public service broadcasting content amongst this age group. Young teenagers themselves expressed a desire to have more programmes aimed at them. At the same time, this is the age group whose media habits are changing most rapidly.

I’ve already mentioned some of the changes that we are seeing in the way that children consume media, particularly in the time that they spend on the internet.

This is a symptom of a wider trend that we’re seeing in other groups as well, like the 16-24s. And we think that this is an important factor to be taken into account in developing a policy solution to public service broadcasting overall.

That’s why our discussion paper asks:

Should a solution be tailored to the way that children are using media?

So in conclusion.

Our focus in this debate is on citizens and consumers and more specifically, children. We want to make sure that the specific shortfalls identified in the report we published in October are addressed.

But we also need to make sure we go about addressing the needs of children in a way that is consistent with our approach to public service broadcasting overall.

We know that the issues facing the market for older children and young teenagers are real. And we hear and understand the concerns being voiced about the timetable for taking this forward.

This is precisely one of the reasons why we brought forward our review of public service broadcasting.

But the questions about plurality, UK origination and provision of content through new media that I’ve described are not only at the heart of the children’s debate, but also the debate about public service broadcasting more widely.

And that’s why we need to consider the children’s debate in the context of the overall debate about public service broadcasting in the 21 st century more broadly.

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