Children switch off commercial TV

Children are not watching kids' programs on the commercial TV stations.

They are instead switching to video on demand or the ABC's dedicated children's channel ABC3, the head of Nine says.

"Unfortunately kids are not watching our kids' content on our free-to-air platforms," Nine Entertainment Co CEO Hugh Marks said on Friday.

The quota system demanding a number of hours of local content meant the networks spend "quite a bit of money" on children's programs but Mr Marks said it was not the right mix.

"We probably allocate that money too thinly across too many hours of content for the result we achieve," Mr Marks told a Senate inquiry into media law reform.

Mr Marks agreed with Senator James Paterson that Nine was losing money on children's programming.

Mr Marks said the children's content hit came when the ABC introduced its ABC3 channel, which he described as a great service for the public broadcaster that was being consumed by many children.

"As a result of that channel and then the introduction of video on demand services and other things where kids are consuming vast amounts of children's content, there's just not the audience available for us to be able to compete in that space."

He said the quota obligation meant the hours tended to overcome the quality "and it's not the best outcome".