Children’s media watchdog ACCM is likely to close after funding is axed

For decades, Barbara Biggins’ organisation has provided free reviews of children’s movies and games for parents who want to protect their kids. Now its future is looking bleak.

An Adelaide-based not-for-profit that has provided free reviews of children’s movies and apps for decades has been told its funding will be cut.

The Australian Council on Children and the Media’s (ACCM) Barbara Biggins says it will likely hail the organisation’s demise after more than 60 years.

The council began in Victoria and relocated to Adelaide in the early 1990s.

Barbara Biggins from the Australian Council on Children and the Media.

“Our focus, particularly in the last 10 to 15 years, has been on investigating the impact of media on children, especially young children, and using those evidence-based findings to lobby politicians for more effective legislation,” Mrs Biggins said.

“(A priority) has also been on getting useful information out to parents, to help them manage and make choices around their children’s TV and movie viewing, and more recently mobile apps.

“We believe it is important for parents to establish healthy media choices very early in their child’s life, to prevent problems later on, and this (service) was an effective tool to do that. If children are exposed to content at an age they can’t cope with it, it can lead to things such as sleep disturbances and development of unnecessary fears and anxiety.”

State Government funding will end on June 30. ACCM had sought $260,000 for the next two years.

Mrs Biggins said it would be a blow to parents across the nation, as about 35,000 visited the ACCM website each month to view more than 1000 reviews.

She said those employed to review movies and apps all had expertise and qualifications in child development, so gave parents a level of insight general classifications could not.

“People were saying to us, if I have a five or seven year old, telling me a movie is PG is not much help as it doesn’t tell me if the content is going to scare the daylights out of my child … there are huge developmental differences in the content children can cope with.”

She said the former Labor government relied on ACCM to raise concerns in relation to simulated gambling, inappropriate advertising and unsuitable content in online apps.

Renowned parent educator and author Steve Biddulph says the service is an important one.

“It makes the ratings system, which is far from perfect, more understandable and workable,” says the author of Raising Boys and Raising Girls.

Renowned parent educator and author Steve Biddulph says the movie review service is an important one.

“Parents are busy and tired and need help of this kind to make trips to the movies not go badly.

“There’s nothing worse than making a lot of effort for a family trip to the movies and (to) suddenly realize how unsuitable a film actually is.

“And we know from experience as therapists that sometimes kids see films so far out of their rating that they experience long term trauma — there is such a thing as movie-caused PTSD, as we are now discovering.

“It’s not a trivial matter. This is a service that pays for itself and is much needed long term.”

A State Government spokesperson said it believed the Australian Classification Board was “the appropriate body to determine the classification of films and video games”.