Mediawatch UK to campaign for child protection controls on catch-up services

Mediawatch UK is to kick off a big campaign next year aimed at getting broadcasters to offer more robust parental controls on catch-up TV services.

The moral guardian, founded by the late Mary Whitehouse, has hit out at both the BBC for its iPlayer service and Channel 4 for its 4oD service.

The problem in Mediawatch UK's eyes is that the on-demand nature of the catch-up services make a mockery of the 9pm watershed for adult content.

Mediawatch's director Vivienne Pattison accuses the broadcasters of only paying lip-service to the need to protect kids from grown-up shows.

"The technology has moved ahead of the regulation and that's the problem", Pattison told The Telegraph.

"Ofcom's most recent research found that fewer than a third of parents use parental controls or are confident about how to use them. And often it's children of parents who cannot or will not do something about it who are the ones you are most concerned about".

Mediawatch wants the services to introduce password protection and the group plans to "campaign on it big next year".