'Sedated' by the scroll: MPs hear warnings about YouTube's grip on kids' attention
You know that glazed look kids get when the next video auto-plays before they've blinked? That's the picture experts painted in parliament this week - and honestly, it's hard to shake.
Children's laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce didn't mince his words. The wave of super-fast, "frictionless" kids' videos flooding YouTube isn't entertainment, he said. "It's sedation."
The worry: sedation, not storytelling
Cottrell-Boyce told MPs that channels built for constant churn - think CoComelon and its clip-after-clip pace - bombard young viewers with information but starve them of the "stimulation and nourishment" good children's TV used to offer.
For little kids, he said, repetition and slowness matter. "You're building familiarity," and making life feel "navigable." He grew up with shows that took their time. Kids today don't get that same rhythm - or the shared culture that came with everyone watching the same thing after school.
His bigger fear? The "illusion of choice." On platforms driven by recommendation engines, "you default to more and more of the same," he said. And the rise of AI risks "ossifying what we've already done."
The numbers that made MPs sit up
Greg Childs OBE, who runs the Children (movies and tv series)'s Media Foundation and once produced BBC kids' shows, laid out the stats. He said 62% of under-16 viewing is now on YouTube, compared with 22% on broadcast TV. The platform has "captured the eyeballs, imaginations and interest of a nation" - but without the curated system that used to protect quality and standards.
Here's the sting for producers: YouTube doesn't fund new kids' shows upfront. And because of children's advertising rules, the "creator economy" barely exists for them. According to Childs, kids' content makers earn 80-90% less than other creators, even as YouTube reportedly pulls in hundreds of millions from children's advertising.
"Children's wellbeing is damaged or not fostered by the algorithmic recommendation systems," he said. Kids fall down rabbit holes. We all know what that looks like at home.
So what changes?
Childs argued for a "form of regulation and ratings system" for YouTube - and for the government to push if the platform won't move first. "The algorithm is capable of change," he said. The ask isn't to blow up the system, but to make it work for kids.
He wants the government to revive the Young Audiences Fund (closed in 2022) and consider a streamers' levy that would include YouTube. He also floated a practical idea: use AI to rate content and let parents set the tone of what gets served - "public service content," "BBC content," "content of value." Simple switches with real impact.
A fragile pipeline - and familiar brands at risk
Right now, the BBC is basically the last significant funder of children's TV in the UK. ITV, Childs noted, didn't produce a single children's show last year. That's not a market; that's a warning light.
Even long-running staples aren't safe. Childs said he worries about the future of shows like Doctor Who, and pointed to how Paddington ended up sold to Canal+. Maybe it's just timing. But you can feel the center wobble.
Here's what this could mean
If you commission or cover kids' TV, the brief is changing. The audience is still there - they're just elsewhere, pushed along by a system built to keep them watching, not growing. The challenge now is to build bridges between quality storytelling and the feeds kids actually use.
And yes, that likely means a mix of funding, smarter regulation, and platform cooperation. As Childs put it: "Come on, you great big beasts controlling us, come join us and make it better for kids." It's a plea - and a plan.
What to watch next
- Parliament's ongoing inquiry into children and the screen - where this debate is unfolding - is tracking fixes and timelines. Follow updates here.
- For wider context on kids' viewing habits and online risks, Ofcom's annual research is a useful gut-check on where kids actually spend time. Read the report.
Bottom line: kids don't need more noise. They need shows that slow the world down long enough to make sense - and a system that backs the people (movies and tv series) who make them.
