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Extra revenue generated through product placement could be used as a way of encouraging commercial broadcasters to resume the commissioning of children's programming, says Baroness Benjamin.
The BBC is now virtually the sole provider of home-made children's programmes and produces some excellent, diverse productions. On the other hand, the 30 or so dedicated children's channels mainly broadcast bought-in programmes which are mostly animation.
Shockingly, only one per cent of children's programmes are UK productions. Seven years ago, during my time as a member of the Ofcom Content Board, I supported the idea of product placement within television programmes in a declining advertising world, as I saw it as a way of increasing revenue for commercial broadcasters.
This was partly because of my concerns about the steady decline in home-produced children's programmes and lack of finance for them. Some say that the restrictions on advertising during children's programmes, and the resulting loss of revenue, was the reason commercial broadcasters reduced and eventually stopped making children's programmes.
So it was with this in mind that I felt product placement could be used as a way of encouraging commercial broadcasters to resume the commissioning of children's programming with some of the extra revenue generated.
Despite the fact that for decades now the sale of merchandise connected to children's programmes has continued unregulated, product placement is seen as a step too far. So although children today are surrounded by commercialism and almost seduced into buying the products associated with the programmes, it is not suggested that there be any actual product placement within children's programmes.
What I am suggesting is that there should be a ruling that some of the projected revenue generated by product placement in other programmes be ring-fenced and used by broadcasters to take up their public service broadcasting (PSB) responsibility and resume the production of high-quality children's output.
I believe, because of the commercial world children live in, we need to counterbalance it with good quality PSB programmes which give them some respite from the endless barrage of commercially-led content they are surrounded by.
So I see these PSB programmes, funded by product placement, as a sort of corporate social responsibility opportunity for the broadcasters to 'give something back' to children.
Baroness Floella Benjaminwas raised to the peerage as Baroness Benjamin of Beckenham in the County of Kent in 2010. A star of stage and screen, Benjamin is best known as a presenter of children's television. She starred in Playschool from 1976-88 and was awarded a special lifetime achievement award for outstanding contribution to television from BAFTA in 2004.
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