The submission by the Children’s Media Foundation (www.thechildrensmediafoundation.org) reveals that the public service provision for children is in severe decline. The BBC spent on children’s content and services in 2014 accounts for nearly 97% of total PSB spend in the genre, compared to ITV and Channel 5 who commission almost nothing. The international channels, including Netflix and Amazon commission very little content that focuses on the UK. Read the full submission here.

Jeanette Steemers (Communications and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), University of Westminster) argues that ‘there needs to be a better understanding of the children’s media landscape beyond narrow issues of funding and the future of children’s television production, that also considers the degree to which commercial providers in the online sphere should also be subject to regulation when it comes to children.’ Read the submission in full here

‘No public service broadcaster in the UK offers systematic programming across the full age range of children (0 – 17)’ according to Sonia Livingstone and Claire Local (Media Policy Project, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science). While children engage with all kinds of content on variety of devices, television set remains to be one of the most popular ways of engaging with public service content. Read Livingstone and Local’s submission and key recommendations here

In considering the balance of payment between television platforms and public service television, the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (CPBF) argues that the supply of platforms which operate in the public interest is essential and the removal of must offer/must carry provision would limit the audience experience, undermine access and ‘provide a further incentive for commercial PSB operators to call for less regulation’. Read the submission in full here.

According to some recent studies, international revenues of UK indie sector has trebled in the past decade, but Natasha Cox (television and documentary producer) observes how increased competition as well as growing focus on international sales stunt creative freedoms within the sector. According to Cox, building new structures between public service broadcasters and independent sector is essential to enable fairer competition between independent TV companies, and would enable delivering a broader range of public service television content. Read the submission in full here