ACTF calls for an Australian Children’s Content App

Parents, imagine if there was a place for children’s screen content where you could be sure that everything your kids watched was Australian.

That could one day be a reality, if the Commonwealth Government adopts a recommendation to create an Australian Children’s Content App which could be installed on smart TVs and other devices.

Currently, smart TVs give the TV manufacturer control over what’s featured on its home screen, meaning the prime positions can be sold to the service willing to pay the highest price for preferred placement – most often, overseas streaming services. This can result in biased viewing recommendations and search results which favour the content being promoted by these commercial partners, rather than locally made content which may be more appropriate and valuable to the Australian audience.

In response to calls from Australia’s free to air broadcasters to introduce regulation to address the issue, the Government has launched a Prominence Framework for Connected Television Devices Proposals Paper and committed to legislating a prominence framework to ensure local TV services are easy for Australian audiences to find on connected TV devices.

The ACTF’s submission to the Proposals Paper suggests the creation of an Australian Children’s Content App specifically for Australian children’s content, which would be prominently positioned on all smart TVs (and related devices) purchased in Australia. The app would also be available on App Store/Play Store so that Australians are able to install the App on their tablets, phones and other devices. 

ACTF CEO Jenny Buckland said: “The screen stories we watch influence how we think about others, as well as how we think about ourselves. Quality Australian content exposes children to a range of faces and voices that are genuinely representative of their community.

“Australian children’s television is building empathy, kindness, social cohesion, and shared values. Today’s children gravitate toward screens during their formative years, right at the time when they are developing their values, identity and self-esteem. It is vital that they are provided with screen content made especially for them, and from a children’s rights perspective, Australia should and could do more to meet the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child requirement that information of social, cultural and linguistic benefit is available to all children via the mass media.”

Current research from Swinburne University in association with RMIT confirms that parents and children struggle to find Australian content on streaming platforms and YouTube services. In today’s fragmented media landscape, parents favour streaming services that are “child-friendly” and have clearly demarcated kids’ sections.

Australian Children’s Television Cultures (ACTC) researcher Dr Jessica Balanzategui said: “Our audience research with children and parents has found that even in era when children have access to a wide range of different digital devices, they most often watch television on a TV set. Both parents and children find it difficult to navigate smart TV interfaces to discover Australian content, and our research with children 7-9 suggests they even find it hard to identify Australian from non-Australian content. This indicates that the current TV distribution environment is not meeting Australian children’s ‘best interests’. It is vital that the child audience is accounted for in any legislation around prominence and discoverability on smart TVs.”

You can view the ACTF’s full submission to the Prominence Framework Proposals Paper here.