Won't Somebody Think of the Children?

This brought a wry smile to my normally grimacing face:

Children's television will soon be made up of repeats, cartoons and US imports unless action is taken, presenters and producers claim.

The warning comes after a series of cutbacks in British-made programmes because of budget constraints.

Well, yes, there are those of us who said that this would happen. We said it around the time that these plans were announced:

On 1 April 2007, scheduling restrictions on the television advertising of foods high in fat, salt and sugar to children will begin.

Those are the restrictions, you might recall, that lead to the banning of Marmite advertising on hte kiddies' shows because of its high salt content. The bureaucrats had used a 100 gramme serving to measure the %ge of the daily salt allowance that Marmite would represent.

But what did anyone think would happen? Restrict the ability to make money out of childrens 'programmes and guess what? Fewer people will make children's programmes.

ITV and Channel 4 have pulled out of financing children's TV production...

It really doesn't take a genius to connect these dots, does it?