Cbeebies headquarters at MediaCityUK Image: Ellie/Flickr. Some rights reserved
The White Paper is out and the government has announced plans to pilot a public service content fund. This will be used for public service genres that are in decline. One of those ‘genres’ is children’s content. Warned about the prospect of top-slicing, the £60 million will be taken from funds left over from the last licence settlement. But what happens after the three-year pilot is over? And what does this mean for the future of the children’s production sector?
A problem of demand
Children’s content has suffered inexorably over the last decade or so. The removal of transmission quotas for commercial public service broadcasters (mainly ITV) in 2003 was a big blow, as was the ban, three years later, on advertising for junk food and fizzy drinks on children’s TV.
