Kid s Content Statement

Today our CEO, Matthew Deaner, expressed strong support for the #savekidsTV campaign, launched today by Senator Hanson-Young.

Australia produces world-class children's content that is loved by Australian children and their parents. We make great stories like Lockie Leonard, Mako Mermaids, Beat Bugs and Dance Academy, in part, because of a set obligations on commercial television broadcasters and well-funded public broadcasters. Removing these obligations on commercial broadcasters, together with any withdrawal of support from the public broadcasters, will mean Australian children's content just won't get made. Australian children deserve access to high-quality Australian stories that are targeted to their different stages of development. Mr Deaner said.

The answer isn't devolution, it's evolution. We can't leave the responsibilities to children's programming to the public broadcasters. It takes a village to raise a child. We need to evolve the regulatory environment to reflect the current market and include obligations on SVOD services like Netflix and Amazon.

The UK reduced children's obligations on commercial broadcasters in 2003. That led to a 93 per cent decline in the industry. This month, the UK Government admitted it made a mistake and is re-introducing their obligations. The Australian Government doesn't have the same luxury to make a mistake now and fix it later because if the content quotas are removed, they can't be brought back because of our free trade agreement with the United States.

We want Australian stories on Australian screens. We want Australian children dreaming Australian dreams. We can't sleepwalk into a nightmare situation where no Australian children's content gets produced and our children don't see themselves reflected our screens.

It's great Senator Hanson-Young and the Australian Greens are committed to strengthening children's content in the Senate, I call on the Government to do the same.

Media enquiries:

James Cheatley

james.cheatley@screenproducers.org.au

+61 2 8076 5878

Download the release.

LINK:	https://screenproducers.org.au/news/kids-content-statement/...
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