Greeny News

Ed Vaizey pledges to look again at UK financing as producers and lobby groups defend UK-produced content

A funding crisis has gripped the production of children's programmes in the UK, threatening a long tradition that extends from the Clangers to the Teletubbies. Last week Ed Vaizey, the new culture minister, pledged to look afresh at a problem that has been debated for years, and which he was made aware of when he was an opposition spokesman.

The subject is of keen importance to the 50 or so production companies involved in entertaining children â€" with series such as In the Night Garden for CBeebies, or Horrid Henry, for CITV.

Over the past six years funds for new TV series have fallen dramatically â€" around £50m a year less is being invested now compared with 2004. This is mainly due to ITV's virtual withdrawal from fresh investment, which was worth around £30m a year, and the reliance by US-owned channels, such as Disney and Nickelodeon, on imported popular global series.

Ofcom's 2009 PSB review showed total UK spending by the public service channels on children as down from £139m in 2004 to £87m in 2008. Colette Bowe, the chair of Ofcom, told MPs last year: "We are sleepwalking into a situation where we do not have enough UK-generated content of high quality for our own kids."

Another problem is that there is little pressure from the viewers, children and parents, to galvanise politicians. The closest thing to help for the sector was a suggestion by Lord Carter, in last year's Digital Britain white paper, of a £30m annual subsidy â€" but it came to nothing.

With cutbacks elsewhere, the BBC has in effect become the sole patron and commissioner in genres such as drama rooted in British life, from Tracy Beaker Returns to MI High.

In recognition of this responsibility, investment in children's programmes is one of the BBC's priorities in its strategic review of operations. But the plan, to pump in an extra £10m a year from 2013 to augment the programme budget of £75m for CBeebies and CBBC, is said by some to be inadequate.

Consumer groups, including Voice of the Listener & Viewer, are unimpressed, and also concerned about the BBC's lack of ambition to cater for teenagers, or to provide a dedicated radio station for children.

Anna Home, chair of the lobby group Save Kids' TV and a former head of BBC children's output, says: "£10m doesn't buy that much extra drama." Mike Watts, chair of the children's committee of the indies' trade body, Pact â€" and whose company Novel Productions makes Horrid Henry for CITV â€" says: "£10m represents only 2% of the £600m of funds the BBC says it is reallocating. It doesn't plug the gap."

Pact, whose members produce many children's programmes, wants a £50m a year boost. The BBC is trying to make amends, after reducing investment between 2006-9, before pumping in an extra short-term sum of £8m a year, and says its aim is to help British producers compete with rivals such as Disney and Nickelodeon.

It also wants to extend the hours of CBBC, from a 7pm finish to 9pm, which would create more opportunities for new programming. It hopes to build on the success of shows such as the Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures, and make more programmes that cross over into prime time.

There are some green shoots. Sky1's dramatisation of Terry Pratchett's Going Postal showed what can be achieved. Channel 4 has also, under a redrafted remit agreed in April, agreed a new duty to cater for older children. But it has no extra funds â€" a £10m pilot fund was axed as advertising fell â€" and it is expected to concentrate its efforts online.

Channel Five, whose Milkshake strand is the home of Peppa Pig, has a strong following among pre-school children but it is now in effect up for sale.

US-owned channels, such as Disney, do make some investment in locally made cartoons, such as Jungle Junction, made in Cornwall by Spider Eye, and could be pressed to do more.

UK animation studios are losing work to overseas companies benefiting from tax breaks - the production of Bob the Builder switched to Los Angeles last year. Pact is backing a group of animation experts who say that cartoons are part of a global industry, and need special tax breaks.

Genevieve Dexter, commercial director of the leading kids' TV indy Cake Entertainment, says a producer never gets more than 30% of funding from a single broadcaster, even the BBC, for an animated children's show â€" everyone relies on third party investment.

But any lobby for an extension of the 20% tax breaks enjoyed by film-makers to children's TV animation would hit Treasury opposition. In the short term, the BBC is likely to remain by far the largest source of UK children's programmes.