Commercial Free Programming

This week ABC in Australia announced that the government would be providing the broadcasting station with 82 million in funds to provide a commercial free channel for children. The 82 million would be provided over the next four years, if the government is re-elected. These funds will pay for the Australian programming stations as well as production costs for the channel.

The government chose ABC to provide the nation's youth with the commercial free channel because of the already existing trust that families, especially parents have in the broadcasting company. The ABC brand has provided Australia with over 50 years of non-commercial children's content. This will be another addition to the programming the company already offers.

This channel is being develop to give parents a channel that they can allow their children to watch without having to worry about influential marketing. The channel will provide 15 hours of programming during the day. The channel's content will target children up to the age of 17 years old.

This idea for a commercial-free channel comes after discovering the ban on junk food advertisements that Australia is pushing to adopt failed in the U.K. The Australian government is now concentrating on providing parents with options.

For now Australia is working out other alternatives to banning junk food advertisements. The Australian government has not completely ruled out the idea, but feels it needs further analysis and restrictions. One idea was to ban junk food advertising on children's channel before 9pm.

Information provided by New ABC kids channel 'boon for parents'

Some good news for a change...

Recently Tampax and Always announced that they would be partnering up with organizations to provide necessary products to school age girls in sub-Saharan Africa. Tampax and Always are joining forces with organizations called HERO and Protecting Futures to provide these girls with products to help them during their menstrual cycle.

These girls cannot afford tampons or pads many have resorted to staying home instead of attending school. To help positively affect the education and lives of these girls these companies will be providing them with the products the girls need to attend school during their menstrual cycle.

After noticing that many girls were missing about 4 days of school every 4 weeks these organizations realized that the were absent due to their menstrual cycle. Their families do not have the money to buy products such as tampons and pads. Without these necessary items the girls from sub-Saharan Africa were feeling embarrassed every time they got their period and had to attend school. As a result, instead of being embarrassed, they would simply not attend school. For these girls to miss approximately 4 days of school every 4 weeks could equal out to as much as 20% of their school days.

Not only was this time of the month embarrassing for her, but the facilities provided by the school lacked of clean and private sanitation.

This new partnership will begin with an advertising campaign released by Tampax due to come out this fall. The campaign will promote puberty education in support of these young girls in Africa.

As stated by Michelle Vaeth, Protecting Futures Program Director for P&G "There are lots of reasons kids miss school, being a girl shouldn't be one of them." Sounds like a good slogan

I think this story is inspiring because with all of the news circulating about how detrimental junk food advertising is to children, here is a company who is truly proving they care for their customer. Tampax and Always have been excluding from the media in the war against advertising to children, and instead of laying low they decided to set an example.

Inspiration for this blog post provided by Tampax and Always Launch Protecting Futures Program Dedicated to Helping African Girls Stay in School

Why we don't trust corporations with our children

Not only do we think the way fast food markets advertise to children is appropriate, but our view on drug companies advertising does not stray very far. While fast food companies are drawing children in using recognizable cartoon characters, drug companies are misrepresenting their products to attract children.

This year, before schools opened up in September, some televisions tuned into to view a drug company advertise their sleeping drug to school age children. The commercial boasted "it's back to school season", implying that students heading back to school are the perfect candidate for their sleep agent.

First and foremost, only school age students with SEVERE sleeping issues should be taking drugs to help them with pills. They are too young to be turning to pills to cure their problems.

Second the side effects that are associated with this product include depression and thoughts of suicide. For those adults reading this blog post, remember back to when you were still in high school. I think it's safe to say that this age is difficult and confusing enough with including increased chances of depression. For children, it seems as though it is easier for them to get down on themselves and hard to bring those feelings back up.

Along with using unethical advertising companies are also becoming hard to trust based on their products. Take for example the latest recall by Mattel that included more than 300,000 products was due to the use of lead paint to craft these toys.

With companies as large as Mattel and numbers as high as their latest recall, how can we trust companies to look out for our well being as well as our children's. It seems impossible to protect against the unethical actions of corporations and difficult to believe they are taking every measure possible to keep their consumers safe. As adults we may have somewhat of an advantage over our children and must work hard to protect them from the unethical ways of corporations.

Information for this post provided by Consumer mouse that is roaring

Junk Food Ban Failed

Recently in the news, there is much discussion of Australia banning junk food advertisements. Australia was set to follow the lead of the U.K. The U.K. started a ban on advertising unhealthy food to children six months ago. The ban prohibited foods that were high in fat, salt or sugar from being advertised during programs aimed toward or with a "particular appeal" to children under the age of 10.

The problem in the regulation comes from the term particular appeal. If a program is mostly viewed by adults then according to the regulation advertisers are still allowed to advertise during the program. This means soap operas and game shows that adults and children may watch together are an appropriate way of advertising. Also this allows advertisers to advertise around children's programs if the programs prior to and after have mainly an adult audience.

In Britain, the government has banned airing advertisements around the Bratz program which consists of about 128,000 child viewers. Programs such as the Bratz which are aimed at children fall under the advertising ban. However, Britain's most popular soap opera "Coronation Street" is available for companies to advertise during. "Coronation Street" has about 704,000 four to ten year old children watching.

Because the most popular shows with children and adults are typically aired before 9pm, new legislation is being considered to change the regulation. Advocacy groups are pushing for the regulation to extend the ban to incorporate the time 9pm before marketers can advertise junk food. This change will increase the effectiveness of the ban drastically. The current ban on junk food reduces the exposure of junk food ads to younger children by about 51%. If the ban were to include the 9pm clause the exposure would be reduced by 89%

Before Australia considers adopting this regulation on advertising junk food to children, they must analyze the successes and failures of Britain's current regulation. From the statistics they may feel that changing the regulation to extend the ban to 9 pm would be more effective. Australia needs to make sure that there are also no loop holes around advertising to children, such as advertising during adult programs. I feel that this may be effective if they did some research before adopting the regulation.

Information for this post provided by UK ban on junk food ads not working

Shrinking Hemlines

Have you been to a local middle school lately, or even an elementary school? As many of us know, girls wearing revealing clothing has been a problem for high school age girls. This problem is no surfacing as young as while girls are in elementary school. Children are easily influenced by other girls around them and what they see on TV. At these ages it is also important for children to feel as though they fit in. When everyone around them is wearing mini skirts and tube tops, girls feel the pressure to follow suit.

Shows such as Cheetah Girls and dolls such as the Bratz don't do much in convincing girls to dress more conservatively. The dolls and actresses in these shows are typical scantily clad. Being that these characters are aimed to attract girls in middle school and elementary school, marketers need to be more responsible. Marketers are aware that these characters are idolized by young girls and need to influence them to respect their body instead of telling them to flaunt it.

Not only are children influenced by characters they see on TV, they are bombarded with it in any clothing store. It seems as though it is difficult to take children shopping for respectable clothes when there are so many stores that sell these revealing styles. Companies such as "Pimpfants" that sell "baby beaters" and "junior pimp squad" t-shirts should not be incorporated in a department store. These companies are influences the tastes and preferences of these young children.

This week was the week of Halloween. Although I didn't get any trick or treaters my mom called me up to recap the night. The first thing out of her mouth was, "You wouldn't believe what these girls were wearing". She went on to describe a list of costumes that for the most part consisted of mini skirts, tank tops, and animal ears. My thought is that if they are wearing this revealing clothing at such a young age, it can only get worse. I don't think these children are going to start wearing more conservative clothing as they grow up. Instead I can only imagine that they will strive to be sexier than each other and as these girls grow up we will be seeing a lot shorter skirts and shorts, if that possible.

Inspiration for this post provided by Are Young Girls Dressing Too Revealingly?