Why investment in Public Service Children’s Media is so is vital - especially now.

This article is based on the keynote speech I gave at the Children’s Media Foundation Summit in February 2024. It was first published in the Children’s Media Yearbook 2024 - HERE.

A video recording fo the full speech is HERE.

30 years ago, when I applied for a job at Nickelodeon, I remember being so excited by the possibility of working in children’s television. Since then, I’ve been working in, on or around children’s issues, trying to nurture and empower children to get off to the best start - on their perilous but exciting journey to adulthood. At that exact time, Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s brand new President gave a speech that deeply affected me, and still does now. It really set my purpose in life and the personal journey I have since travelled. He said: “there can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children…” going on to add “Our children are the rock on which our future will be built. Our greatest asset as a nation.”

With those words ringing in my ears, I got that job at Nickelodeon and spent nine wonderful years there before leaving to start Ella’s Kitchen, which we built to become the UK’s biggest children and baby food brand. I’m now a trustee of the Sesame Workshop, I also chaired London’s Child Obesity Taskforce for the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, for four years, and am now the Chancellor of the University of Reading.

Those 30 years also saw great broader optimism for building a nation where all childhoods are important and all are supported. From a government that took over 1 million children out of poverty, the hope that the technological revolution brought, and the opportunities for education, entertainment and social connection that the new media landscape similarly promised. But over the past decade the focus on children first stalled, and then went into reverse, in terms of protecting their wellbeing, welfare and opportunities. This was because of Government priorities, economic policies and political choice. But also the cultural deserts that a globalised youth culture, technological developments and ineffective regulation have created.

During the pandemic, when children suffered the harshest. Life-long impacts from lockdowns (remember that pubs opened before schools) I thought deeply about Mandela’s words, their impact on me, and the seed he had sown all those years before. Sustained by its hope, and my continued belief in the importance of a child centred future, I began researching and writing my book that was published at the end of last year called: Raising the Nation – How to Build a Better Future for Our Children (and Everyone Else). It challenges us to redefine what success looks like for a society and is a draft manifesto for what a big public policy framework and ideas could look like if we prioritised a commitment to ensure every child has the chance to feel significant, to have a thriving childhood, and become the person that each has the potential to be.

I do believe we have a fundamental crisis of childhood in this country today. That crisis is, I believe, born from four fundamental ways childhoods have transformationally changed over the last generation. First of all - everyone under 30 has grown up in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world, where planning a future is impossible and stress is toxic. They have experienced one national or global crisis followed by another followed by another, all their lives, be that environmental, social justice, austerity, public health, personal health, technology, terrorism and geo-political. Second, their lives have been lived in a world where short termism dominates institutional decisions like never before, be that in business (think the rise of private equity), education (think the rise of league tables and SATS), politics (populism, and the mythical promises of ‘oven ready’ solutions) or the media (think 24 hour news cycles and the ubiquitous, social media). Third, that the digital revolution has changed every aspect of childhood, from the positives of offering connections, knowledge and belonging, to the negatives of content, contact, conduct and consumer risks. Finally, children make up a significantly smaller proportion of our overall population than they did when I was born yet, even though our GDP has doubled, they are more than twice as likely to live in poverty. And our society is now also incredibly more diverse. The consequence is that our public services have not adapted to be relevant, reflect fairness, or give equality of opportunity across all childhoods. And that includes public service children’s media.

All children are not thriving today, because too many: Have no voice to shape their lives. They and their families get stuck in systems that don’t hear their lived experiences or true needs. Too many don’t have a variety of positive experiences in childhoods, from which to inspire their purpose, their passions, the things they are good at, and therefore their confidence and drive, as well as their tolerances and empathy. And too many don’t have their wellbeing measured, prioritised or protected: be that in their home, at school, in the public space or online.

We see implications of these conditions failing our children by the fact that, for example, 40% of London’s children live with an unhealthy weight, that 1 in 6 children has been diagnosed with a mental health issue - an increase of 60% in the last 3 years. Half of all youth centres have been closed in the last decade, and over 500 playgrounds since 2016. We see it in the way the social media companies feel it is perfectly OK to define a 13 year old as an adult to push their content and algorithms and collect their data, yet in their Terms and Conditions can highlight that some of such content may be harmful to those under 18. Yet we allow this. What does this reveal about our society’s soul?

A key ingredient in a nourishing, stimulating childhood is high quality, freely available culturally relevant drama, information, entertainment, edutainment and storytelling content. This ingredient is critical for children to understand who they are, get a true perspective of their environment around them and of the culture and heritage of their individual communities in the society in which they are growing up.

Children are not a “minority” group in society. Uniquely, everyone is, or has been, a child, and the role of public service children’s television in fostering curiosity, encouraging literacy, and inspiring citizenship has long been regarded as public service television’s key contribution to post-war generations. Public service, or socially beneficial, media can: help a child understand their town, their country and their world: develop understanding, valuing and ownership of, what it means to be British; create a will to engage, participate and contribute to society; provide role models, inspires ambition and encourage social inclusion; and cant engage young people in ‘national conversations’ which drive them to participate as adults in the future.

If anyone is in any doubt about this, just consider the importance to you of the role models children’s television gave you and their encouragement of your ambitions. For decades, healthy competition between public service broadcasters, within a well-regulated framework, meant that UK children’s broadcasting was the envy of the world, and exported everywhere as a key signal of British values and ‘soft power’. It’s maybe no coincidence that from 1945 until the 1970s inequalities of opportunity lessened and social provision for children and families increased. High quality, freely available, culturally relevant television for children played its part in that landscape. But this world has gone by. Broadcast TV now accounts for about 15% of 6-11 year olds screentime – only 3 years ago it was more than 35%. Ofcom estimate that less than half of 3-17 years old now watch live television.

Instead, many children now find their media content on video-sharing platforms which are aimed at international audiences and dominated by US content. On these platforms they also have to navigate the pressures and complexities of adult-focused media without the support of public service content tailored to their needs. Who do we want our children’s role models to be? Is it the influencers or extremists on social media, or is it the diverse and inclusive performers and characters we see on public service children’s television?  Where do we want them to get their view of the world and their communities from?

I’m not suggesting we can turn back the clock to a cosy world of Watch with Mother and nice people on Blue Peter – nor am I suggesting that the past was wonderful, and the present is scary and nasty. But I do think it is vital that children’s content helps to give children more voice, a variety of positive experiences and to protect their wellbeing - in the decades ahead. Today’s children have more choice and easier access to storytelling and information than any of us ever did as a child. But how they find accurate information and culturally relevant inspiration is fundamentally down to the whim of huge, largely unregulated international corporations. And the decreasing amount of high-quality British content for kids is hidden in a quagmire of - at best dubious, and at worst dangerous - stuff.

We have generally regulated media to prevent harm - what about regulating to promote good? To break down inequalities and build up inclusion and to expand horizons of opportunity. We also generally regulate the amount of children’s content broadcasters produce. Is it time to set quotas for how much content is consumed?  Which would incentivise public service broadcasters and others to ensure ‘nourishing’ content reaches the audience, wherever they now are, and be incorporated into the algorithms that push content? What of the streamers and video sharing platforms, who currently are largely free of obligation when it comes to offering quality content for British children? Yet, who can be regulated and brought ‘inside the tent’ as we have seen with the impact of The Age Appropriate Design Code and the Online Safety Act. What’s the quid pro quo from the wealthy companies who dominate our children’s viewing?

In the US, Sesame Street has led the way in creating public service children’s television, and then innovating to remain relevant and vital to children’s wellbeing as the media landscape has changed. They’ve moved from helping disadvantaged kids learn ABCs and 123s in the 1970s, to helping children process emotions like grieving and anxiety in the 1980s and 90s, to providing humanitarian responses for displaced children, helping children see autism as an opportunity to be inclusive, and now to creating ‘Sesame Street in Communities’ content, off broadcast TV, to support children and families with specific issues like opioid addiction or incarceration. The ensuing strategy to deliver this mission has involved re-looking at its revenue streams, content focuses and diversification in both distribution and content. 

The ideas put forward my book, Raising the Nation, include ensuring that Arts are seen as a necessity, and not a luxury, with schools being offered the opportunity, capacity and resources to put creativity at the centre of their teaching and learning systems. How could public service children’s content play a part in this transformation within the classroom? Can this sector develop kitemarks for best practice, incentives to reach it, or tax credits for those organisations that illustrate content changes in their products informed by the principle of children thriving? Can public service children’s media find an indispensable role in a National Play Strategy, be that broadcast, on demand or received through social media – that could help childhoods thrive in the context of the UK and British culture and environments? I think it can, and I think it must.

We are at a moment of inflection. Decisions, policies and regulations made today will have impact for a generation or more as we cross the Rubicon to a digital, platform agnostic, future for children’s media. This industry can play a leading role in helping children thrive in this world. But you’ll need to be brave, curious, creative, innovative, entrepreneurial and forceful, to make the case to, and partner with, Government and set the agenda for building a better future for our children, and therefore everyone else.  And critically, we must involve children in defining our challenge, in exploring solutions and in understanding why they make the choices they do. 

High quality British children’s content will become scarce and could become extinct. Parents, politicians and producers all have a role to play here – but all need to step up before it’s too late. As well as our great tradition of making high quality British media for children, we risk losing our heritage of growing new producers and writers. Once the traditional, regulated broadcasters and their budgets are no longer being found by children, who will pay for this vital element of our children’s nourishment?