A Busy Year For Children’s Media

January 7, 2014

The Children’s Media Foundation celebrated its second birthday in 2013, along with some notable achievements.
CMF Director Greg Childs reports on the year gone by.

Welcoming in the New Year, sheltering against the January wind and hoping for some snow, it seems only right that we take a look back through 2013. We managed to accomplish quite a few things for which the CMF team and our many supporters should give themselves a very big pat on the back. Hopefully we can achieve even more in 2014!

Last April saw the launch of the UK animated series tax relief – a campaign we had supported for some time.  It’s already proving effective in bringing more business to UK animators. 2013 also saw the launch of our first publication – the Children’s Media Yearbook. We think it’s a 'world’s first' in fact – and proving very popular!

We collaborated with Ofcom on two major research programmes and with the Office of Fair Trading on its consultation on in-app and in-game purchasing.  We responded to four public consultations, including the BBC Trust’s review of children’s services, which we have since followed up with further queries about budget cuts and the level of top management support.  Lobbying continued through the year at Channel 4 on their 10+ provision, and at the British Film Institute on film for children and families.

We were active in the political sphere – with briefings for the Shadow Minster for Culture, Media and Sport, and for the Culture Media and Sport Parliamentary Select Committee.  The All Party Parliamentary Group for Children’s Media and the Arts continued to meet under the Chairmanship of Baroness Benjamin.

In the public space we launched our evening events discussion season with an event at the Children’s Media Conference in July and two further public debates in the Autumn.

New Founder Patrons joined the organisation – including Brian Cosgrove, Brian Jameson and Cressida Cowell and we launched a Corporate Supporter scheme and Supporting Organisation status – so that companies and guilds, associations and charities can also get behind what we do.

We grew the Executive Group, which met every month of the year, with new members overseeing supporter development and events, and diversity.   We also added Peter Liver, Director of Childline at the NSPCC to the CMF Board.  The Research Group has spent the latter part of the year working on the new Parent Portal – more on which in the next newsletter - and the Industry Liaison Group inaugurated its informal consultative sessions – the Chatshops.

We’re pleased to say that in 2013 the CMF Twitter feed went from strength to strength with tweets on a daily basis and growing list of followers.  Thanks to Newsletter Editor Hannie Kirkham the CMF News comes out in the first week of every month with alarming regularity, and our communication capacity was hugely enhanced by the December confirmation of our new Press and PR representative – Val Taylor.

Viking Courage for the CMF! The Year Ahead