The Stage

Pact leads petition to protect home-grown television for children

Published Thursday 4 October 2007 at 13:20 by Matthew Hemley

Producers association Pact is leading a petition to safeguard the future production of children’s television.

The petition, which is being put forward to prime minister Gordon Brown, has attracted around 150 signatures since launching yesterday.

It has been set up in response to an Ofcom report which has highlighted the decline in original television productions for children and in particular the decreasing amount of dramas aimed at younger audiences.

The regulator has claimed that the future of UK-originated programming looks “increasingly uncertain” and Pact is now campaigning to Downing Street to “ensure that UK children have access to a wider range of high quality, UK-made public service kids’ television”.

Pact chief executive John McVay said: “Ofcom’s report shows clearly that parents place a high value on quality, home-grown kids TV, and that they want a wide range of children’s programmes provided by a variety of services, not just the BBC. As Pact has consistently warned, and the Ofcom report today confirms, we are rapidly coming to the point where there will be no such programming outside the BBC to any significant level.”

Meanwhile, children’s television presenter Floella Benjamin has also waded into the debate, claiming that future generations will have “nothing other than a series of reruns and imports”.

The petition can be signed at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/kidstelevision