OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE: DOES PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA MATTER? Photo by Efe Kurnaz on Unsplash Our Children’s Future: Does Public Service Media Matter? is a publication of The Children’s Media Foundation Director, Greg Childs Administrator, Jacqui Wells The Children’s Media Foundation 15 Briarbank Rd London W13 0HH [email protected] First published 2021 © Colin Ward for editorial material and selection © Individual authors and contributors for their contributions All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of The Children’s Media Foundation, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organisation. You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover. Book design by Camilla Umar Cover photo by Efe Kurnaz on Unsplash CREDITS Editor .......................................................................COLIN WARD Editorial Team ......................................................ANNA HOME GREG CHILDS HELEN MCALEER JAYNE KIRKHAM HELEN MCALEER JEANETTE STEEMERS JOHN KENT CMF Executive Group ........................................AKINDELE AKINSIKU ALISON STEWART ANTHONY UTLEY ASHLEY WOODFALL CECILIA THWAITES CHRISTINE SINGER DIANA HINSHELWOOD LINCIA DANIEL MARTIN FRANKS NIKKI STEARMAN OLIVIA DICKINSON ZAINAB BALAM ZOE MASSEY Report Design .......................................................CAMILLA UMAR, CUTOUTANDKEEP Web Design ............................................................DAN MOAT, TAHNINIAL And again, our thanks to all the writers who have given their time, energy and ideas to this project. [email protected] Foreword ................................................................................................................... 6 Baroness Floella Benjamin DBE and Julie Elliott MP Introduction ............................................................................................................... 7 Anna Home A Message of Support ................................................................................................ 9 Michael Rosen Section 1: Is There Any Value in Public Service Media? CONTENTS Policy, Production and Public Service in the UK – Taking Children Seriously ............. 11 Professor Jeanette Steemers Here’s Not Looking at You, Kids ............................................................................... 18 Frank Cottrell-Boyce Not Waving, But Drowning – An Independent Children’s Producer’s Perspective ....... 24 Anne Wood Feeling Included: The Value of Public Service Media .................................................. 27 Wincie Knight Time for Another Revolution? ................................................................................... 32 Sir Phil Redmond Education and the Role of Public Service Media ........................................................ 39 John Richmond Public Service Broadcasting for Children and the Commercial PSBs ........................... 46 Emerita Professor Máire Messenger Davies Section 2: Understanding the Media Experiences of Today’s Children The Physical and the Virtual: Understanding Children’s Relationships with Their Media ........................................ 53 Anne Longfield Carrying the Baton: BBC Children’s & Education ..................................................... 58 Patricia Hidalgo Today’s Children, Tomorrow’s Voters ........................................................................ 62 Patrick Barwise and Peter York Public Service News for Young People: Where Next? ................................................. 68 Warren Nettleford Child-Produced Content and the Simulation of Childhood ............................................ 74 Dr Jane O’Connor The Appeal of Period Drama for a Younger Audience ................................................ 81 Dr Shelley Anne Galpin Why Is Public Service Television for Kids So Important? ............................................ 87 Nicky Cox MBE and Simona Karabyn Section 3: Can a New Public Service Media Framework Serve the Children’s Audience? Children’s Television: The Canary in the Coal Mine .................................................. 93 Jackie Edwards A Global Perspective on Thinking Locally ................................................................. 96 Jenny Buckland PSM Means ‘Personalised Streaming Media’ ............................................................... 99 Timandra Harkness Why Public Service Media Need to Place Our Trust in the ‘Lean In’ Generation ........ 104 Japhet Asher The Active Digital Citizen .......................................................................................... 108 Lord David Puttnam Public Service Media: A Matter of Life and Death ..................................................... 113 Dr Mai Elshehaly and Professor Mark Mon-Williams As Kids Kickstart the Metaverse, Is Public Service Media Ready? .............................. 119 David Kleeman LIKE .......................................................................................................................... 129 John Dale Once Upon a Time, There Was a Broadcaster... Responding to the Distributed Risk of Children’s Programme Production and Consumption ..................................... 135 Dr Karl Rawstrone Our Children’s Future ................................................................................................ 142 Ed Vaizey A Virtuous Circle: Creating a New Additional Funding Model .................................. 148 Tom Van Waveren What Now? What Next? What If…? ......................................................................... 153 Greg Childs CHILDREN’S MEDIA FOUNDATION PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA CAMPAIGN FOREWORD BARONESS FLOELLA BENJAMIN DBE AND JULIE ELLIOTT MP As co-chairs of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children’s Media and the Arts, we welcome this new campaign by the Children’s Media Foundation. Their initiative to commission this series of radical, free-thinking articles will dig deep into the fundamental purpose of public service media content for children and the challenges faced in a media landscape that has changed beyond all recognition. Over thirty years ago the UK signed up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), thus agreeing that children have the right to learn about and practice their own culture, to join in a wide range of recreational activities, and to have access to safe and appropriate mass media. Recent clarification applies the UNCRC to the digital environment as much as the physical world, recognising that for children there is no differentiation: every experience has an impact. Our children’s future is our future. The adults they become and the decisions they make will be the consequences of the childhood we give them now. They don’t just learn in formal classrooms: they learn everywhere. So, what they see, hear and experience in the media we give them matters. Will they know enough about the world? Their society, local, national and beyond? Will they care? Will they make it better or worse? And do we care? In the past ten years or so, there have been numerous policies dealing with communications and the digital economy, but they have never seen the needs of children as of paramount importance. Even now, Ofcom’s public service media consultation, Small Screen: Big Debate, includes very few references to children’s content, and the Government’s new panel of advisors was initially set up without a single children’s specialist. What sort of politics is this? Perhaps that’s the problem: public service media is a party-political football rather than a national societal service. It is time to put party aside and put children first with a proper coordinated look at what is best for kids. Because ultimately, what is best for children will be best for us. Julie Elliott MP & Baroness Floella Benjamin DBE Co-Chairs APPG for Children’s Media and the Arts 6 CHILDREN’S MEDIA FOUNDATION PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA CAMPAIGN INTRODUCTION ANNA HOME OBE The Children’s Media Foundation was set up to “work towards ensuring that UK kids have the best possible media on all platforms at all ages.” Surely not a difficult or controversial ambition, but looking back at our history since 2011, and that of our predecessor, Save Kids TV (2006 - 2011), we still seem to be asking the same questions, focusing on funding, quality, regulation, the future of the BBC, decline in original content; continually facing the same problems without finding satisfactory long-term solutions. When there are enquiries and consultations about the future of children’s media, we always seem to be chasing our tails, trying to catch up, tinkering with the past, defending the status quo. And here we are again, in 2021, awaiting the outcome of the latest Ofcom consultation on PSB, including children’s, and wondering where it will take us. However, this time the context has changed. The impact of Covid-19 on the whole world and, in CMF terms, particularly on children’s lives and media consumption, has made us stop, think and consider whether public service media for kids still really matters and if it does, do we have a unique opportunity to rethink the whole issue and plan a new and different future? This is why the CMF decided to launch this report. We asked a wide range of people from inside and outside the world of children’s media to consider whether or not