Kids fed diet of cartoons, repeats, and American TV, says scathing Ofcom report

Youngsters are being fed a diet of imported cartoons and repeats instead of quality homegrown productions, Ofcom said.

The media watchdog found that shows made in the UK and premiered on a domestic channel account for only 1 per cent of output.

Cartoons, however, make up 60 per cent of programming aimed at children, the report revealed. Some 83 per cent of all shows are made abroad, primarily in the U.S. Drama and factual programmes have been all but dropped from schedules because they are too costly to make.

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Parents surveyed for the report were scathing about quality. Only 40 per cent said they thought children's programmes gave youngsters a better understanding of the world.

Fewer than half said television helped their offspring to learn and develop.

Ed Richards, Ofcom's chief executive, called for a national debate on tackling the fall in quality. 'This comprehensive study highlights the decline in homegrown commercial children's TV production and the revolution in young people's media consumption,' he said.

'Parents are understandably concerned and we now need a national debate on what measures, if any, can or should be taken.'

The watchdog found that 10,339 repeats of children's programmes were shown on public service channels last year.

The same broadcasters - which include the BBC and ITV - put out little more than 1,000 first-run programmes in 2006.

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ITV has now decided to switch almost all its child-oriented output to its digital channels. ITV1 broadcasts only an hour of children's television each week.

The BBC, meanwhile, is considering moving its programming to BBC2 from BBC1.

And although the number of dedicated children's channels stands at 25, compared with six in 1998, much of their output is foreign-sourced.

Among the most successful foreign imports are U.S. shows SpongeBob SquarePants, Power Rangers and Bratz which all air on GMTV.

The BBC uses its CBeebies channel to show LazyTown, which was made in Iceland for Nickelodeon in the U.S.

Ofcom said programmes such as Grange Hill might not be commissioned in the future because of the cost.

It said younger teenagers fared worst because so little output was aimed at them. The report said they were left either to watch adult shows such as Hollyoaks and Big Brother or programmes for children younger than themselves.

The shows with the most viewers in 2006 - including Blue Peter, Newsround and The Story of Tracy Beaker - were all homegrown.

Peter Phillips of Ofcom said: 'The thing we are very concerned about is that it's important for kids to understand and reflect their own culture.

'Grange Hill does that for

British kids in a way that American dramas, however good they are, don't do because of the cultural differences.'

Ofcom found that children still spend more time watching television than any other media, spending an average of 15 hours a week watching the small screen.

But younger audiences have been increasingly fragmented, according to the report. In 1956 Pinky and Perky was the most popular show with ten million viewers while Basil Brush took the same honour in 1976 with eight million.

Yet Newsround was able to top the poll last year with an audience of just two million.

Ofcom said it was examining a number of proposals to improve children's programming.

The ideas include setting up a fund to pay for the development of shows or giving Channel 4 a wider remit to provide children's content.

Ninety-six per cent of the parents questioned by Ofcom said variety in children's programming was important and 81 per cent said television played a key social role.