An American kid, visiting London, might be confused by the way people talk and would certainly notice the funny cabs and the way people drive on the wrong side of the road. But sitting down before the telly he or she could well be back in Akron or Duluth.
They’re all there: “Hannah Montana,” “High School Musical,” “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “Scooby-Doo.”
In fact, our visiting American kid would be hard put to find a show that wasn’t familiar. A recent report found that last year just 17 percent of British kid’s television is British.
Never mind their parents, who themselves see plenty of U.S. imports. It's Britain’s kids who are getting a deep immersion into American culture when they turn on the tube, and that’s got alarms going off around the country. Ofcom, the government agency that regulates TV, has called for a national debate on the state of children’s TV, and it’s got one now in full swing, with the press jumping in and all sorts of interest groups forming to argue for change.
What’s at stake is the very culture of the former British Empire.
“Unless swift action is taken to retrieve the situation, future generations will grow up with a Disneyfied view not only of the world but of their own culture and history,” warns Jocelyn Hay, chair of one such group, Voice of the Listener & Viewer.
“We want to make sure that they have access to quality programs that reflect their own culture and language as well. UK kids have an experience of the world they live in that is unique,” Colin Ward, a member of the executive committee of the Save Kids TV Campaign, tells Media Life.
Understandably, Americans take pride in their exports, and programming remains at the top of the list, even as the streams of hard goods, the machinery, consumer products and raw materials of earlier decades, dwindle to a trickle. Indeed, some argue that the true measure of American today is calculated no longer in gross national product and military prowess but in mice—Mickey and Minnie and like celluloid creatures.
But Europeans aren’t nearly as impressed. Irate’s a better word. And as one might expect, the French have been particularly vocal. They were a driving force behind 1989 legislation requiring--albeit with a number of loopholes-- that 51 percent of audio-visual content in European Union member countries needs to have originated within the EU.
Yet imports of American programming appear not to be slowing in the least, judging by the deals made last week at MIPCOM, the marketplace for international TV shows.
In Britain, there are at the moment 25 children’s channels, and those include the BBC, the UK’s public broadcaster, and ITV, Britain’s largest commercial broadcaster. But there’s also Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and Jetix.
But while the BBC continues to pump money into original programming, the others have been cutting back. Spending last year was down a third from a peak of $332 million in 2002.
In some ways the cutbacks serve as a case study in the law of unintended consequences. They are in large part the result of crackdowns on junk food advertising that have meant a comparable decline in ad revenues over a roughly comparable period. Ad revenues from kids programming were down by 36 percent between 2001 and 2006.
“We have said if you aren’t going to have this kind of advertising, you have to have another way to fund (children’s TV),” says Save Kids TV’s Ward.
An Ofcom study found that over two-thirds of parents surveyed believed that there isn’t enough UK programming for kids.
It would appear kids miss it too. While such programming accounted for 17 percent of total children’s TV hours, it accounts for 38 percent of kids' viewing.
A solution of sorts may be in the offing. Content creators are aiming to produce more content in the countries where they air. So for example is Disney, which is reportedly making both Japanese and Korean versions of “Hannah Montana.”
Meanwhile, elsewhere in popcult, “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?” was No. 1 at the box office over the weekend, bringing in $21.5 million. Last week’s No. 1, Disney’s “The Game Plan,” slipped to No. 2 with $11.5 million in ticket sales.
In DVD rentals for the week ended Oct. 7, according to IMDb.com, “Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer” debuted at No. 1, with “Knocked Up” falling a place to No. 2.
On iTunes this morning, Britney Spear’s “Gimme More” was the No. 1 single for the second straight week, with Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” at No. 2 once again.
And in books, Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas’ new book “My Grandfather’s Son” debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times’ hardcover nonfiction best-sellers list for the week ended Oct. 6, and also at No. 7 on USA Today’s book chart for the week ended Oct. 7.
|
TOP MOVIES
Weekend Box Office Estimates
Weekend of October 12-14, 2007
|
|
Rank
|
MOVIE
|
Engagements
|
Box office (millions)
|
|
1
|
Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? (Lionsgate)
|
2,011
|
$21.50
|
|
2
|
The Game Plan (
Buena Vista)
|
3,128
|
$11.51
|
|
3
|
Michael Clayton (Warner Bros.)
|
2,511
|
$11.01
|
|
4
|
We Own the Night (Sony)
|
2,362
|
$11.00
|
|
5
|
The Heartbreak Kid (
Paramount)
|
3,233
|
$7.43
|
|
6
|
Elizabeth
: The Golden Age (Universal)
|
2,001
|
$6.18
|
|
7
|
The Kingdom (Universal)
|
2,836
|
$4.57
|
|
8
|
Across the Universe(Sony)
|
954
|
$4.00
|
|
9
|
Resident Evil: Extinction (Screen Gems)
|
2,249
|
$2.65
|
|
10
|
The Seeker: The Dark is Rising (Fox-Walden)
|
3,173
|
$2.15
|
|
Source: Yahoo Movies
|
|
IMDb TOP DVD RENTALS
Week ending October 7, 2007
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
Fantastic 5: Rise of the Silver Surfer
|
-
|
|
2
|
Knocked Up
|
1
|
|
3
|
1408
|
-
|
|
4
|
Next
|
2
|
|
5
|
We Are
Marshall
|
3
|
|
6
|
The Condemned
|
4
|
|
7
|
Blades of Glory
|
5
|
|
8
|
Bug
|
6
|
|
9
|
Death Proof
|
7
|
|
10
|
Delta Farce
|
9
|
|
Source: IMDB
|
|
ITUNES TOP 8 SONG DOWNLOADS
for week ended Monday, October 15, 2007
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
|
1
|
Gimme More, Britney Spears
|
|
2
|
Crank That, Soulja Boy
|
|
3
|
Bubbly, Colbie Caillat
|
|
4
|
No One, Alicia Keys
|
|
5
|
Rockstar, Nickelback
|
|
6
|
The Way I Am, Ingrid Mihaelson
|
|
7
|
1234, Feist
|
|
8
|
Hate That I Love You, Rihanna feat. Ne-Yo
|
|
Source: iTunes
|
|
NEW YORK
TIMES BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending October 6, 2007
|
|
Fiction (hardback)
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
Weeks on chart
|
|
1
|
Playing For Pizza
by John Grisham
|
1
|
2
|
|
2
|
The Choice
by Nicholas Sparks
|
2
|
2
|
|
3
|
Dark of the Moon
by John Sandford
|
-
|
1
|
|
4
|
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
|
4
|
20
|
|
5
|
You’ve Been Warned
by James Patterson and Howard Roughan
|
3
|
4
|
|
Nonfiction (hardback)
|
|
1
|
My Grandfather’s Son by Clarence Thomas
|
-
|
1
|
|
2
|
The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan
|
1
|
3
|
|
3
|
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans
by Ann Coulter
|
-
|
1
|
|
4
|
The Nine
by Jeffrey Toobin
|
2
|
3
|
|
5
|
Louder Than Words
by Jenny McCarthy
|
3
|
3
|
|
Fiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
Cross by James Patterson
|
1
|
2
|
|
2
|
H.R.H.
by Danielle Steel
|
3
|
2
|
|
3
|
Mine Till Midnight
by Lisa Kleypas
|
-
|
2
|
|
4
|
The Gift by Nora Roberts
|
-
|
2
|
|
5
|
True Evil
by Greg Iles
|
-
|
2
|
|
Nonfiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
|
1
|
37
|
|
2
|
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
|
2
|
124
|
|
3
|
90 Minutes in Heaven
by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey
|
3
|
50
|
|
4
|
The
Glass
Castle by Jeannette Walls
|
5
|
91
|
|
5
|
Three Cups of Tea
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
|
4
|
36
|
|
Source: New York Times
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
USA
TODAY BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending October 7, 2007
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
|
5
|
|
2
|
Playing For Pizza
by John Grisham
|
2
|
|
3
|
The Choice
by Nicholas Sparks
|
1
|
|
4
|
Cross by James Patterson
|
3
|
|
5
|
Mine Till Midnight
by Lisa Kleypas
|
86
|
|
6
|
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
|
6
|
|
7
|
My Grandfather’s Son by Clarence Thomas
|
-
|
|
8
|
The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan
|
4
|
|
9
|
Love in the Time of Cholera by
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
|
-
|
|
10
|
H.R.H.
by Danielle Steel
|
9
|
|
Source:
USA Today
|
