The survey of viewing habits by the Broadcasting Standards Commission and the Independent Television Commission found that many youngsters could not imagine life without television. Some households have as many as seven sets and many children leave at least one on continually for background noise.

Children watch an average of two hours 23 minutes of television each day; of that, just 30 minutes is children’s programming. More than three quarters of the time young viewers watch programmes made for adults. Children’s programming itself is increasingly dominated by animated series.

Last year BBC One’s EastEnders was the programme most watched by children aged between 4 and 15, with 2.37 million — about a quarter of all the country’s children — tuning in. The ITV1 Pop Idol final and Only Fools and Horses were both watched by more than two million children with nearly as many watching Coronation Street. The most popular programme aimed specifically at children, BBC One’s Newsround, was watched by half that number.

The Broadcasting Standards Commission has previously expressed concern that EastEnders portrays domestic violence before the 9pm “watershed” — the device that is supposed to assist parents by demarcating the point after which material unsuitable for children may be broadcast. Children are said to feel left out if they cannot discuss EastEnders at school.

Twenty per cent of children between 4 and 15 watch television after the watershed, according to the What Children Watch report: “Children are watching, in significant numbers, programmes that are outside the children’s programming genre.”

Almost 60 per cent of households with children now have multichannel television; 13 digital or satellite channels are dedicated to children’s programming. Children with access to such channels watch about 30 per cent more television a day than those who have only terrestrial channels.

BBC drama series such as Grange Hill, which dealt with social issues that preoccupied the young, are now “almost forgotten by multichannel children”, the report says. “These kind of children’s dramas are often seen as depressing, and although they are more relevant to British children’s lives, they do not fit well with the ‘home from school mood’ and the need of children for a bit of escapism. Children want to relax when they get home from school and not have to think about anything too heavy. Most would opt to watch a funny US programme.”

Even the terrestrial channel Five has trebled the amount of animation it shows during its children’s programming.

The Broadcasting Standards Commission praised the BBC for the range of genres it offered, yet the research showed that the proportion of airtime given to drama on children’s channels had fallen from 24 per cent to 9 per cent; factual programming is almost absent from these channels.

The corporation’s CBBC devoted 37 per cent of its airtime to factual programmes last year, but CBBC attracted little more than 1 per cent share of children’s viewing in multi- channel homes this year.

Sarah Thane, of the Independent Television Commission, said: “Parents should encourage children to explore the great diversity of children’s programming as well as programmes which set out just to amuse and entertain.”

The report concludes: “Children find it almost impossible to turn television off because there is always something to watch. They might not necessarily be watching or listening but it is always there as background noise.”

Lord Dubs, chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Commission, said: “I am a little saddened when children say ‘life without TV, no way’. There was a generation where children would not have had television. They read books and other things; it is a comment on the way the world is today.”

• The Independent Television Commission has upheld complaints against an Action Man advertisement which showed the character severing the arm of his opponent with a Samurai sword. The ITC judged that the advertisement could not be shown before the watershed.

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