Food Advertising Unit

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According to the European Audiovisual Observatory's 2002 Yearbook, free to air commercial broadcasters from countries where regulated advertising to children is permitted devote a greater proportion of their transmission time to children's programming than their equivalents in countries where it is banned or restricted (e.g. Sweden). According to that survey ITV devoted 9.7% of its 2002 schedule to kids, Five 12.7%, whilst TV4 in Sweden was 4%.

The only Swedish commercial free-to-air broadcaster with universal coverage (TV4) has an obligation to provide 5 hours a week of children's programmes, of which half must be produced in Sweden, but this commitment is small compared to UK public service broadcasters (PSB) which exceed their licence obligations. For example, ITV1 is obliged to broadcast 10 hours a week of children's programmes, but it exceeds this by approximately 2.5 hours and Five broadcasts around 26 hours per week. ITV, Channel 4 and Five all spend 80-85% of their children's programme budgets on own-originated programmes across a variety of programme genres, thus generating jobs as well as providing children with programmes from their own culture.

In 2003, the UK's commercial PSBs (ITV1, Five, GMTV, Channel 4) are investing around £72 million in children's programmes, and will transmit between them nearly 2,700 hours of children's programmes.

In Greece, toy advertising is banned on TV from 7.00 to 22.00 hours. This is largely seen to be a policy put in place to protect the Greek toy industry from international competitors and as a result, children's programmes in Greece have reduced and it is estimated that investment in programming has fallen by 40%.

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