Erscheinungsformen der Internationalisierung des Kinderfernsehens: Vielfalt oder Einfalt? : Quantitative und qualitative Analyse des aktuellen Programmangebots in Deutschland und Großbritannien

Intentional children’s television communicates specific ideas of childhood and is subject to political debates and contemporary controversy. The latter two are increasingly reflecting the current globalization and commercial orientation across many aspects of daily life. It comes as no surprise that also for children’s television an increasing internationalization, Americanization, commercialization and loss of identity and their interrelation were critically noticed in recent years, however a dedicated analysis is overdue.
The present work is devoted to the Status Quo of internationalization in children’s television as reflected by the available program. Subject of this study is a comparative description of both the British and German program starting from a historical sketch of children’s TV. The cultural discussion and the literature are subsequently presented. For an artificial month (four disjunctive weeks) in spring 2003, 21,177 broadcasts of children’s TV from both countries are the broad statistical basis for a quantitative analysis. According to representative trends three animation series of different origin are selected and qualitatively analysed with respect to formal, aesthetic and content-related cultural indications of national or international implications.
The quantitative analysis reveals that over a few extrapolated months the available children’s TV programs in both countries share more than 50 percent common material, i.e. the independent part is the minority. Eighty percent of the common share are animation series, predominantly originating from the USA, while among European productions only those from the UK have a portion worth mentioning. American animation series provide 27 percent of the total German children’s program and even 40 percent of the British. The taste, probably best reflected by the genres is almost identical with only a difference in the providers i.e. a slightly stronger British focus on national specialties.
The main promoter of internationalization, Americanization and increasing amounts of cartoons are network channels, belonging to globally operating media companies. If only five of them (those that also broadcast at night) are omitted, the total program volume shrinks to only 60 percent of the previous value with a simultaneous reduction of the common program to only 40 percent. In addition European productions gain relevance in the remaining dataset. The mutual relation of British and German children’s TV market is also affected: Generally the British program is only half as accessible for German (co-) productions as the German program is to British (co-)productions but ignoring the network-channels this ratio drops to only a fifth.
There is a strong tendency to internationalization in children’s television as reflected by a homogenisation of both markets and a predominance of animation in imports and co-productions. This finds its correspondence in the content: to achieve a wide international distribution the abandonment of cultural references is advantageous if not mandatory. This results in standardised productions of stylised or fantastic scenarios with clichéd and stereotype characters in trivial plots that dominate and unify the program in both countries. Existing references to a national background are mostly American, probably they do not interfere with expectations as European children are prepared by other media.
The contemporary children’s television is thus more “glocal” than international; it is biparted into local, culture-specific references and a globally standardised program. The illustration of the global diversity of viewpoints and topics has become irrelevant.
Starting from these findings, further studies should address how this “glocal” children’s television shapes the cultural awareness and the mentality of the young target group.