Weekend Spy: TV is good for you

Many in the television industry are concerned about the decline in original UK children’s TV production. But it’s not just those who work on such programmes who are worried; new academic research shows that a lack of good quality children’s programming in the future could have a serious impact on the development of our kids.

There was a lot of noise about the main channels reducing their spend on UK-produced children’s TV at the Voice of the Listener and Viewer children’s conference in November. Or, in ITV’s case, cutting the number of hours it broadcasts shows for kids on ITV1. The noise seemed to come mainly from those in the industry, who were demanding that Ofcom should intervene and do something to curb the trend.

Ofcom is currently undertaking a review of children’s TV, with a full report to be published later this year. At a special VLV conference this week, Ofcom’s project director on the review, James Thicket, shared some of its initial findings. As most of us know, there are many platforms now competing for the attention of your average child. Apart from TV, there’s the iPod, mobile phones, games consoles, social networking sites and the internet as a whole. According to Ofcom’s research TV remains the dominant medium, with 97% of 8-11 year olds, and 94% of 12-15 year olds regularly watching television ahead of DVDs and internet usage. It is also rated as their most important medium, with 43% of 8-11 year olds saying they would miss it the most: around double that of games, and seven times the percentage for the internet.

When we were younger, we heard our mothers say that too much TV would give us 'square eyes'. But there is now research which suggests that quality children’s TV is important for a child’s development. Sonia Livingstone, professor of social psychology at the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, says that the key to all this is that TV is an activity that kids can share with their parents.

The University of Sheffield surveyed 2000 parents, reporting on how their children engaged actively with television, and how these families used TV to build on social and cognitive learning in the home. The research also showed that during a child's early years they learn a great deal from television, and this can be linked productively to school-based learning. Professor Livingstone also points to the fact that the TV watched by children often points them in the direction of interesting and interactive content on the internet, as well as stimulating book sales. More recently, the University of Westminster showed how moderate TV viewing benefited the reading skills of young children, raised their levels of media literacy and assisted in their broader ability to learn, including using a wider vocabulary, more expressive language and their knowledge of storytelling.

Children themselves tend to prefer UK-produced programmes. 93 of the top 100 programmes for kids in 2006 were produced by the public service broadcasters. Professor Livingstone says: "The research seems to show that what children get from television - how it stimulates their imagination, their conversations with friends, and thoughts about the realities of daily life – they get from UK-originated drama. That’s not to say that they can’t get some of this from imported drama. But perhaps their responses are more subtle; more taken-to-heart when what is being portrayed [on screen] are the dilemmas they face day-to-day."

Livingstone adds that a key factor in the ‘kids TV crisis’ debate is that no one is saying children should watch more television, but that the TV they do watch should benefit them: "Admittedly, many of the needs of children could be met in other ways – it’s not that children’s TV is the only way. But there is research which shows that television is a good way to do it: they learn from what they see. Television can also be watched by all children, and so it is more egalitarian. And as society becomes more obsessed with what happens to children outside the front door, what we provide them at home becomes ever more crucial," she adds.

Not surprisingly with the increased popularity of reality and Saturday night talent shows amongst the young, nearly 70% of children’s viewing is attributed to adult programmes, with the most popular viewing slot being between 6pm and 9pm. However, children do actually seem to be watching less TV than adults, which reflects the limited amount of time children have to watch TV when their other activities are taken into account. Children watch an average of 15 and a half hours per week: a decline from 16.7 hours in 2006, and with adults watching an average of 25 hours.

Ofcom research shows that children are migrating to the dedicated children’s channels more and more, with 82% of children’s viewing going to CBBC, CBeebies, Nickelodeon and Disney: an increase of 30% since 2002. It reflects the increasing availability of digital channels in the UK home. Parents are consequently concerned about the quality of the shows their children watch, and the BBC's dedicated channels score high on the delivery of home-grown quality content. The academic research backs this up, with a survey of 200 mothers’ groups last year showing that 86% thought that UK-produced TV was a good way to educate children about their culture.

Ofcom’s results show the children’s channels are dominated by the BBC, which is not a good thing in terms of competition in the PSB market, especially when one considers that that the BBC is the only PSB to have increased their spend on children’s production since 1998. Across the PSBs, overall spend on original programming has dropped from £110 million to £90 million. The head of Ofcom’s review, James Thickett, says: "This does suggest that the quality of new programmes being broadcast might have fallen significantly." In broadcasting commissioning, everybody talks about the cost-per-hour rate of new programmes: in kids TV there has been a notable drop, from £85,000 per hour in 1998 to £56,000 in 2006.

Though the public service broadcasters have a remit to produce high quality, original and innovative programming, Ofcom says it only has to consider the PSB's children’s output as a whole, not the number of hours broadcast by any one particular channel. It also cannot stop ITV from reducing its output – only recommend that it doesn’t. Many in the industry think this remit equates to 'not very much', and that the regulator should be able to do more. The Ofcom review aims to address the state of UK children’s TV, and explore what options are open to the regulator to secure its future. Whatever the findings of the report, the industry and academics agree that unless Ofcom uses its powers to the full and takes action, the result could be far more damaging than a few people losing their jobs: a generation of kids could be losing out on a whole lot more.