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Letting Children be Children

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A primary concern was the issue of sexual material in family viewing programmes on television, for example in talent shows and soaps. Numerous examples were submitted of pre-watershed, and cross—watershed programmes where parents felt that programme makers were pushing the boundaries unnecessarily. In the omnibus survey for this Review, 41 per cent of parents said that during the last three months they had seen programmes or advertisements on television before 9pm that they felt were unsuitable or inappropriate for children to see because of sexual content. This was echoed by parents in our Call for Evidence.

"It is unfortunate that the lazy, uninventive 'sex sells' attitude of the media which plasters sexual images and articles everywhere, causes parents to have to address the topic with their children a lot sooner than many would like, before they are at an age where they are emotionally equipped to understand it."

Parent, Call for Evidence response

"There is too much sexual (and violent) content before the watershed, particularly in soaps... The other problem is often programmes are repeated on digital channels at different hours of the day.

I find that many of the TV programmes e. g. [evening soap opera] are inappropriate for the time of day they are shown (even the advertisements for many of the programmes are inappropriate)."

Parent, Call for Evidence response

22.

Parents focused particularly on the storylines of soaps and the sexualised content and imagery of reality and talent shows.A particular issue was highlighted around music performances in entertainment and talent shows during family viewing hours. There was a perception that such performances were heavily influenced by the sexualised and gender-stereotyped content of music videos, and that they were more ‘raunchy’ than was appropriate for that type of viewing.

23.

We believe that there is a strong sense that broadcasters are at times actively working against parents, and some parents have expressed a good degree of disappointment that the traditionally trusted control of the television 'watershed' appears to be less strictly

observed than in the past. Some parents even questioned whether the watershed still exists.

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