Child-Friendly Broadcasting and a Home for Children

Not long after, the government’s enactment of Government Regulation No. 17 of 2025 on the Governance of Electronic Systems in Child Protection (PP TUNAS) came just days before the commemoration of National Broadcasting Day (HARSIARNAS). These two events certainly serve as a momentum for improving the quality of information, particularly in creating a child-friendly digital space. Every 1 April, Indonesian society celebrates HARSIARNAS to preserve the historical legacy of the establishment of the first radio by Mangkunegoro VII, named Solosche Radio Vereniging (SRV). The emergence of PP TUNAS is a response to digital phenomena deemed insufficiently child-friendly. Several studies have warned that social media does not always have positive impacts. It leaves steep gaps for children. Not because of the content, but also, on a very important side, children are not yet sufficiently able to critically digest the abstract information circulating on social media, especially content devoid of value. This inadequacy of ability is what can be understood as the basic effort behind protection initiatives. Considering that social media and other new media do not arrive bearing only nobility. As shown in recent cases in the United States regarding platform efforts to create addictive spaces without warnings to consumers. In that case, Meta and Google were found guilty of showing indications of making children addicted to social media. This addiction should not be seen merely as a phenomenon of children’s playfulness with social media, but it seems deliberately designed to render children powerless before social media. In this context, consumer protection regulations are deemed important. Protecting from Home The government’s boldness in ‘isolating’ children under 16 years old is a step worthy of appreciation, although it requires further actions. Of course, it needs a massive and equitable digital literacy movement, so that society, especially children, can be more critical in selecting information. Next is the role of the family, which must not fade. The author recalls what was conveyed by KH Wahab Hasbullah (KH Wahab Hasbullah in the Eyes of the Family, 2025), that one day television will no longer require antennas or cables to capture broadcasts. Likewise with handphones, which will be free from cables that often disturb us. The imagination of one of the initiators of media emergence in the NU body has indeed become a reflection; not limited to the devices, but also affecting consumption patterns. As a past experience when still a child, we rarely accessed information without family accompaniment. One family room where the television is attached to the house wall, there is interaction in it that makes the atmosphere warm and mutually mitigating. Children are not left alone in digesting information. The family stands as an information network, providing additional information or even correcting information deemed unsuitable for children. Now the symptoms are different. Parents may also be among the subjects who are ‘powerless’ amid the octopus of social media information. Thus, we often witness that when children are watching television or engrossed with their own handphones, it is the same with parents who accompany them. The greater challenge is how this child protection step is made into a collective will. Not relying solely on the government. So that we can together monitor both the exposure of information to children or the implementation of those regulations. Not Merely Friendly Amid such behavioural changes, HARSIARNAS becomes a channel that never fades amid technology and information challenges. If in the past it was a pillar of patriotism, now television and radio must unavoidably contextualise their functions. The 2025 Survey of TV Broadcast Programme Quality Index (IKPSTV) records that children’s programmes already meet standards. It scores an index of 3.41, followed by news programmes (3.37), infotainment (2.68), religious (3.82), soap operas (3.05), talk shows (3.36), variety shows (3.09), and cultural tourism programmes (3.47). With this data, television can be said to be a sufficiently child-friendly space. Thus, in my view, television and radio become information instruments worthy of being a home for children, especially in accessing information for their growth and development. Moreover, television and radio are the only instruments monitored in real-time 24 hours by the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI). Finally, the regulation of children’s access to social media through PP TUNAS and the HARSIARNAS commemoration must be made a momentum by television and radio to provide quality broadcast programmes for children, whether programmes directly related to children or other programmes deemed still within the ‘duration’ when children are actively watching and listening to television and radio. Ubaidilah, Chairman of the Central Indonesian Broadcasting Commission