SINCE the arrival of new digital channels, children as young as one are watching a growing amount of television that is not aimed at their age group and may not be appropriate, Screen Australia research has found.
While networks are bound to broadcast minimum amounts of preschool and children's programs during the peak children's viewing slots of morning, afternoon and early evening, the research has found many children are either watching TV outside these times or watching programs not aimed at them, largely because many more channels are now available.
Screen Australia's Convergence 2011 report shows more than 50,000 children up to age four are watching Channel Nine's main channel at 7pm on weekends - programs such as Australia's Funniest Home Videos and In Their Footsteps, about Australia's wartime history.
During the week, about 60,000 children in the same age groupwatch Channel Ten at 7.30pm, including programs such as MasterChef.
The report found that rather than watching channels with content designed for their age group, such as ABC2 and ABC3, large groups of children were watching repeats of US sitcoms such as Here's Lucy, I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched on GO! and Happy Days and Mork and Mindy on Eleven.
And while the networks were fulfilling their legal obligations for children's drama, they were offering no more than the minimum. In the 2003-05 and 2006-08 cycles, no network broadcast more than 2 per cent above the required level of children's drama. For preschool programs, all three networks broadcast the exact minimum of 130 hours.
The report said: ''This suggests that children's drama is largely made only as a product of regulatory intervention and would not be broadcast in the same quantity, if at all, if the regulatory requirements were reduced or removed altogether.''
These regulations are being looked at as part of the government's convergence review.
The chief executive of the Australian Children's Television Foundation, Jenny Buckland, said there was a need for more flexibility in the regulations, to consider allowing networks to show first run children's drama on their digital channels, instead of the current rule that it must be shown on the main channel first.
She said children were increasingly watching TV with their families early in the evening but this was typically when family-oriented shows were screened, rather than specific children's programming, and there was a need for regulations to adjust to new viewing habits.
In its submission to the convergence review, the commercial broadcasters' lobby group, Free TV Australia, said children's television standards imposed ''highly complex and extremely prescriptive'' restrictions that were unequal when compared with pay TV and internet TV.
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