As Don points out below, the issue of whether Ofcom should impose restrictions on the advertising of junk foods to children seems to be gathering steam. Just take a look at the consultation responses Ofcom has released on its website (my favourite: Mr. Mike Thomason - they should put him on the Ofcom Content Board). Nearly every comment is from a ‘concerned parent’.

The interesting thing here is that the nearly-universal desire to protect children from what we think are harmful media messages can decide media policy for everyone. We saw that in the R18 debate and we are seeing it again here. Yet, according to census data, children are only 20% of the UK population.

So, is the real problem the adverts? Or the children? I see two possible solutions that Ofcom may not have fully considered:

1. Reduce the number of children in the UK. There were 14.3 million children in the UK in 1971. As of the 2001 census, there were 12.1 million, so already New Labour is doing well. Our kids may be getting fatter, but there are fewer of them, so the overall weight in tons is probably not growing. Sure, kids will eventually age their way out of childhood, but there must be more efficient policy options.

2. Increase the number of children living in poverty. 21 percent of UK children live in low income households. Increasing this percentage would have two beneficial effects. First, poorer people probably cannot afford the BBC license fee, which is currently 131.50 pounds and set to grow. Increasingly, even middle class children will not be exposed to any television advertising because their parents won’t be able to afford the BBC license fee. Second, they will have less money for crisps and fizzy drinks.

Maybe a slightly less radical solution — and one that takes into account the fact that not all of us live in households with children — would be to promote the availability and use of technologies that permit all these ‘concerned parents’ to filter out unwanted channels or programmes. American cable companies do it, but it doesn’t seem like the idea is really promoted by DigitalUK or Ofcom — despite the fact that it is presumably a big benefit of going digital.