The Children’s Media Foundation (CMF) has unveiled a list of proposals to address ongoing challenges impacting British children and their consumption of media.

The event organizer convened its Children’s Media Summit today, holding roundtable discussions with kids industry players, academics, policymakers and advocates. The goal of the gathering was to assess and propose solutions to a “crisis of childhood” in the UK that the CMF says is being driven by two factors: a drop in the amount of regulated domestic content being made for children, and this demographic’s increasing use of unregulated online content and international platforms. 

The lack of accessible and “culturally relevant” content for kids is exposing them to the risk of age-inappropriate content and amplifying mental health struggles like anxiety, the CMF argues.

To address these challenges, several potential interventions have been outlined for the government in consultation with Summit contributors including Patricia Hidalgo (BBC Children’s), Lucy Murphy (Sky Kids), John McVay (Pact), Kate O’Connor (Animation UK) and Magnus Brooke (ITV).

A top priority is to fix what the CMF calls the “market failure” of the UK children’s media landscape by creating more sources of fiscal support and implementing stronger tax breaks for British kids producers in the short term. The org previously criticized the government’s decision to close the Young Audiences Content Fund in 2022. Among specific fiscal strategies to consider going forward is a lottery funding system.

With so much viewership migrating from linear to digital, there’s also an urgent need for measurement and regulation tools to help enforce mandates that online platforms (like video-sharing sites and social media platforms with high rates of usage by kids/teens) carry content that is both age-appropriate and culturally relevant in the UK.

And as emerging technologies continue to have an ever-broader impact in the industry, the CMF highlights an opportunity for public service regulation to play an influential role by personalizing or curating algorithmic and generative AI content for kids audiences.

Featured image courtesy of Chris Lawton via Unsplash