Top executive predicts catastrophic effect of 'knee jerk' ban on unhealthy meals for pupils
By Peter John Meiklem

BRITISH children's television will be subsumed by American imports in five years unless the BBC starts doing "unpalatable" deals with certain corporations, according to the head of children's entertainment in Scotland.

Simon Parsons, BBC Scotland's head of children's output, last week warned that the "blunt, knee-jerk" reaction to Jamie Oliver's School Dinners campaign - which Parsons believes led to television regulator Ofcom banning junk food advertising on children's TV - has plunged children's entertainment into a "perfect storm" from which, without help, it will not recover.

Although BBC productions are funded by the licence fee - Parsons admitted the BBC is "the only place in part sheltered from the storm" - the making of children's programmes in Scotland is heavily reliant on freelance talent, brought in to work on specific shows. Parsons said the advertising ban has led to that talent pool drying up.

Parsons, the man in charge of making shows such as fantasy adventure game show Raven and science-themed Nina and the Neurons, said: "We are facing some difficult and unpalatable decisions and we are going to have to make them if we are going to maintain investment in children's television. If we don't then you can kiss goodbye to British kids TV."

Mary Lawton, food policy manager with the Scottish Consumer Council, attacked Parson's view as a "sad commentary on Britain's broadcasters" and called for the junk food ban to be extended to cover all programmes before the 9pm watershed.

Last week Caroline Thomson, head of structural change at the BBC, announced a new commissioning executive would be appointed to commission children's programmes in Scotland for broadcast on the BBC's UK network. Scotland has been identified as a "centre of excellence for children's programming" by BBC management.

The amount of money spent in Scotland by the BBC on Children's programming has grown from around £7 million between 2005/2006 to more than £10m, according to the latest figures. However, the amount of money spent with independent companies has shrunk to around £500,000, only a fraction of the total.

Parsons stopped short of calling for the ban to be lifted, but added: "It was never good that the children's TV sector was reliant on KFC and McDonalds. I would always support a move away from that. But it was the way that it was done - it was a knee-jerk reaction to Jamie Oliver's School Dinners and it was based on politics and not on hard evidence. The ban has pulled £39 million per year out of the commercial sector."

Despite the licence fee, the BBC can make commercial partnerships with distribution companies after it has first put the proposal in front of its own commercial arm, BBC Worldwide. The BBC makes those partnerships to make money from its formats overseas and can also attract additional funding to cover the costs of making a programme. Parsons said the advertising ban has resulted in a dearth of companies with which to make deals, pushing the BBC into considering new alternatives.

Parsons said: "Our business model is broken. We are looking for other companies to do business with. Those may come with hurdles so high that we struggle to get over them."

He said Nokia would be a good example of a company the BBC could make a deal with; the mobile phone maker putting up money to make a show then receiving exclusive rights to broadcast that show on their phones in return.

Parsons explained: "Children and mobiles is a controversial area that would be deemed a deal too far - even though most children already have mobile phones. But we are going to have to face up to some difficult decisions about who we will, and who we will not, take money from."

Without such deals, Parsons said British children would watch only American imports, shows whose individual budgets are often bigger than the money Parsons gets to spend on a whole series.

Television regulator Ofcom said it had initiated the junk food ban in February 2007 after a process that pre-dated the broadcast of Oliver's show. A spokeswoman said: "It hardly constitutes a knee-jerk reaction to Jamie Oliver's School Dinner's Campaign, which was broadcast in 2005."

The Scottish Consumer Council's Lawton added: "There comments say a lot about the priorities of broadcasters. They have been reducing the money spent on children's television for many years - long before the junk food ban came along."