Children's TV full of repeats and imports, study finds

Children's television has boomed during the past 50 years but the increase is largely made up of repeats and imports, according to a report published today.

The children of 1952 had just four hours of television to keep them amused, whereas those in multichannel homes today have as much as 620 hours of cartoons, dramas and entertainment shows, the Institute for Public Policy Research found.

The institute's report, They Have Been Watching ... Children's TV 1952-2002, by Jamie Cowling and Kirsty Lee, warned that greater regulation of broadcasting was needed to overcome the glut of repeats and foreign shows, such as Pokémon, and ensure a wide range of British-made programmes was available.

The authors expressed particular concern at the "depressing" lack of news provision for children and young people. Mr Cowling, media researcher for the institute, said: "Our research shows the fears about the increasing levels of imported programming and repeats on children's television are borne out by the facts.

"The amount of programmes aimed at children and young people has risen from about four hours during the BBC monopoly to over 104 hours [on public service broadcasters] today. Yet this expansion has led to a massive increase in the levels of imported programming and repeats." Thirty years ago, for instance, programmes imported from overseas accounted for 5.7 per cent of the total amount of children's television broadcast – although that figure includes Magic Roundabout which was made in France, the report found.

In 2002, Blue Peter and other home-grown favourites may still be going strong but imported content was 28.6 per cent. On ITV there were 35 minutes of imports in the week in 1972 studied by researchers compared with more than six hours in the comparable week this year. The figures were similar for BBC1, although much of the increase was attributable to the Australian soap Neighbours.

Repeats made up 35.9 per cent of the total of television broadcast for children and young people by the public service broadcasters in 1972 against 62.2 per cent today.

However, CBBC and CBeebies, the BBC's digital services which were launched earlier this year, have significantly reduced the amount of imports on non-terrestrial television from 91.9 per cent of the total children's programming five years ago to 61.9 per cent.

The Government gave consent to the new services largely because of the BBC's commitment to broadcasting quality British programming.

Mr Cowling said regulation by Ofcom, the new communications regulator, and the BBC's board of governors was "vital" to protect diversity of content, including factual shows and documentaries, and domestic production on the public service broadcasters.

The report said: "We're particularly concerned at the low level of news provision for children and young people. Whilst children and young people do watch other news broadcasts it is depressing to see levels of news for children and young people have barely increased since the 1980s.

"Daily news represents 0.2 per cent of the total children and young people's television shown on all broadcasters during the week."

It recommended Ofcom should encourage broadcasters to develop tailor-made news for children and young people. It also called for regulation to make all broadcasters, not just the public service broadcasters, offer news.

A BBC spokeswoman said it was difficult to understand the basis for the study and "the unusual figures they quote" when it included Neighbours which the BBC did not regard as young people's television.