ITV is warned over children's programming: Celebrations and commiserations as independent franchise winners launch new stations to replace companies that lost the right to broadcast

THE Independent Television Commission, which regulates the new commercial television system, intends to watch carefully what happens to children's programmes in the months ahead.

In a warning shot, David Glencross, ITC chief executive, said yesterday that ITV children's programmes should 'remain very much as they were under the old system', because special protection had been written into the Broadcasting Act. He said they should continue where they are now, in the afternoons and weekends, because that was when children were home from school and available to view.

'Things do need watching to ensure the supply of original programming, so there isn't over-reliance on imported animation, for example, rather than British animation. We attach an importance to originality. Children's television has suffered from the uncertainty, especially over the last year. There is room for improvement.'

Last month the Broadcasting Standards Council published a report warning that children's television faced 'creeping erosion' in a period of deregulation. It pointed to the way cartoons, mostly imported, took up double the proportion of airtime they occupied 10 years ago.

ITV has cut its children's programme budget by 40 per cent in the past four years and Marcus Plantin, the central director of programming, has yet to appoint anyone to commission new output. The BSC report said viewers needed a new consumer watchdog to monitor trends across all television - including the BBC, which has made more limited cuts.

Mr Glencross said he was also sorry that ITV had taken out Highway, its religious programme, from the 6.40pm Sunday 'god-slot', to replace it with films. 'It gave a great deal of pleasure. It is a net loss to the schedule.'

The ITC now steps back from its previous role as broadcaster, to provide 'lighter-touch' regulation. It will only be able to comment retrospectively on whether ITV continues to show the wide diversity of programmes asked for by the Act. It will monitor, using computer print-outs, the schedules of each of the 16 companies and compare them with their contractual obligation, which listed, for example, annual hours for each type of programme. It will issue quarterly and annual reports.

It has at its disposal a range of warnings and fines, culminating in the cancellation of licences, but there is widespread industry scepticism about how tough it will be in practice. Nor is clear how it will judge performance. Mr Glencross said the ITC would be using old schedules from previous years only as 'a rough guide'.

Other changes include the lifting of limits for prizes on game shows, the start of religious advertising and a rise in the amount of imported non-EC material.

Mr Glencross said he felt no guilt about the four companies who lost their franchises in the ITV auction. 'Some of the 16 were bound to change, but I do feel sad.'

One positive point to emerge from the handover, he said, was the rise in regional programming to its highest level.