Children’s TV system ‘broken’: TV heads
Major TV networks in Australia have once again called for children’s TV quotas to be reviewed, with Ten CEO Paul Anderson arguing the system is broken and Foxtel’s Peter Tonagh saying the subscription television operator is “not good” at creating programming for younger people.
Anderson argued children’s television remained commercially unviable and the current regulation – requiring commercial free-to-air networks to have 260 hours of C-classified programs and 130 hours for pre-school children – was unfair. “What we’re saying is the system is broken and needs a review. We are not saying that there should not be children’s programming commissioned for Australian children,” he said.
Anderson (left) on stage with Max Mason discussing programming quotas
Commercial realities, Anderson argued, can no longer be ignored.
ABC for kids is really for younger kiddies (approx 1-8). It’s great because there are no ads and the content is quite good (apart from Peppa Pig, Grrr….).
But when the kids grow up, they need to migrate elsewhere. I would prefer that my older kids watch Australian kids drama. If it was available on Netflix/Stan, then I would prefer them to watch it there, rather than be exposed to ads.
Would a possible solution be for the government to provide a single new channel which all commercial networks were required to contribute content to based on some equitable ratio? They could make it or buy it from overseas – either way it should be “original” as even purchased content should be territory rights limited so no two commercial stations could be trying to submit the same content.
This frees up the commercial stations bandwidth to run programming which they could monetise with ads and shares the “pain” of the lower audiences in a more equitable way.
“We are not saying that there should not be children’s programming commissioned for Australian children.”
But what they are really saying is “We are not saying that there should not be children’s programming commissioned for Australian children – but we’ll be damned if we should commission or broadcast it!”
Looks like they want it all on the ABC while at the same time having the ABC budget gutted.
Sorry – totally contradictory and makes little sense.
Stick to your social contract – you get the airwaves at a reduced price but let Australian kids dream Australian dreams.