Submission to the ABA

YMA's Submission to the Australian Broadcasting Authority's Review of the Australian Content Standard

YOUNG MEDIA AUSTRALIA
PO Box 7130 Hutt St Adelaide SA 5000
www.youngmedia.org.au; email info@youngmedia.org.au
Phone 08 8232 1577; Fax 08 8232 1571

[note: see current contact details for up to date address etc]

Preliminary submission to the Australian Broadcasting Authoritys review of the Australian Content Standard. Feb 2002

Contents

1. Introduction

2. YMA standpoint for this paper

3. Issues raised by this review

1. Introduction

Young Media Australia welcomes this opportunity to provide a submission to the Australian Broadcasting Authoritys Review of the Australian Content Standard.

YMA is a not-for-profit national community organisation formed in 1957.

Mission Statement: Young Media Australia (YMA) exists to promote a quality media environment for Australian children, and to raise community awareness of the needs of children and young people in relation to print, electronic and screen based media.

Who we Are: YMA is Australias only national advocacy organisation representing the interests of children and young people in relation to print, electronic and screen based media.

What we do: YMA collects and disseminates information, conducts research, and provides advice, education and training on the impact of print, electronic and screen based media on children and young people.

How we do it: YMA represents community concerns about the impact of print, electronic and screen based media on children and young people to legislators, regulators and the media.

YMA bases this submission on consultation with its national membership (which includes the major child focussed organisations in Australia), and on its Guidelines on Childrens Media (which include support for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, with particular reference to Article 13, and Article 17, and also the Childrens TV Charter, viz Children should hear, see and express themselves, their culture, their languages and their life experiences, through television programs which affirm their sense of self, community and place).

2. Young Media Australias submission is made from the following standpoint:

2.1 Australian children need and deserve to see their own culture portrayed on television. They should be able to see Australian faces and places, and to hear Australian voices.

2.2 Australian children should be provided with Australian material that is made specifically for them, and which deals with their issues and interests in a way that enhances their development.

2.3 Australian children should have access to the same diverse range of program types that adults do. Childrens programming should not be considered as a single type of programming among many provided by licensees. Drama made specifically for children should always be a significant part of the diversity of program type required to be provided for children.

2.4 Access to quality story telling is an important contributor to childrens development. Quality drama programs will enhance childrens development by positive stimulation of their imaginations, and by expanding their understanding and appreciation of the world in a beneficial way, including promoting non-violent strategies to conflict.

2.5 Australian children should have easy access to such material. Easy access can be equated with consistent and appropriate time slots, and by sufficient promotion to enable the material to be found.

2.6 The Objectives and Section 122 of the Broadcasting Services Act support the above standpoint in relation to children.

2.7 It is apparent over many years that the commercial TV industry is unwilling to provide such quotas of quality drama made for children without the encouragement of regulation. Such regulation and in particular, the Australian Content Standard should remain in force, and be strengthened to make the outcome for the child audience more effective.

2.8 The commercial free to air TV industry must continue to provide such material. The task cannot be left solely to the ABC, if children are to have easy access to a diversity of programs and dramas at a suitable age level.

Nor should the supply of programs to children be left to Pay TV (the let them eat cable syndrome). As FACTS CEO Julie Flynn says in The Australian (7/2/02 Letters), on the most recent figures 75 to 80 percent of viewers choose not to pay to watch TV. Those who choose not to, or who cannot afford Pay TV should not be disenfranchised.

2.9 The maintenance of the Australian Content Standard is also vital for the development and growth of the Australian childrens drama and other program type production industry. The production of quality relevant programs for children that enhance their development is a specialist job, requiring a high level of skill and experience. Without regulation and the continuation of a market for childrens programs, many experienced people will be lost, and the ability to produce quality material considerably diminished. The child viewer will be the loser.

3. Comment on issues related to the Childrens drama subquota

YMA requests that comments made as part of section 2 above (YMAs standpoint) be taken into account in the ABAs consideration of the Childrens drama subquota.

In addition YMA makes the following comments on the issues raised in Chapter 4 of the Issues Paper.

3.1 Overview of the Quota

YMA supports the philosophy behind the existing Childrens Television Standards and Australian Childrens TV Drama quota.

YMA recognises the industrys continuing reluctance to maintain the Childrens Drama quota, but cannot see why the industry should be excused from its public service obligations to the child audience.

Access to quality Australian childrens drama is important in the development of Australian childrens cultural identity. Australian childrens drama is popular with children, and is part of the diversity of program type that they should have access to.

YMA recommends that the present level of Australian Content for C Drama, C and P programs continue, if not increased.

3.2 Importance of overseas markets

YMA believes that while overseas involvement may be necessary in the production of Australian Childrens drama, the CTS criteria and Australian content standard must continue to limit foreignness in these programs.

YMA opposes the inclusion in the drama quota, of programs, which for financial reasons, are, in reality, little more than advertising vehicles for related toys.

3.3 The $45,000 minimum licence fee

The present minimum for licence fees for Australian Childrens drama of $45000 seems not to be working well.

YMA recommends that the minimum licence fee should be raised to at least the minimum required by the FFC as amended from time to time .

3.4 Diversity of drama format

YMA supports suggestions that might result in a greater diversity in format within the C drama quota.

Further, YMA believes that there is a need for at least some part of the drama quota to be directed at the younger end of the 6-12 age range, viz the 6-10year olds, who are still, in interests and development, children, whereas their older siblings may have moved on to other more adolescent interests.

3.5 Reaching the child audience

Children love drama, and especially Australian drama (see 20years of C programs research). The networks have consistently failed their child audience by not giving them proper access to their C drama programs.

Networks have done this by failing to promote their C drama series, and have provided irregular and incomplete scheduling of series. They have failed to program drama series in timeslots that suit the child audience.

However, the networks, having bought Australian Childrens drama, do repeat it often showing that they consider that the product will rate with the audience.

YMA notes that the networks seem not to have taken up the opportunity offered in earlier revisions of the Australian Content Quota, viz, to screen an extra minute of advertising in C dramas if they are screened in prime time.

YMA recommends the use of regulation to require that the networks properly promote their programs on air, and schedule series in consistent timeslots and ensure that the series is completed. Such regulation is necessary to ensure that children know about and have access to their programs.

IN CONCLUSION

YMA will be developing these points and issues further in the next few weeks, and will lodge its final submission then. YMA would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues further with the ABA, especially in a public hearing.

Barbara Biggins OAM
President
2002