Broadcasters have a responsibility to make programmes specially for children in the UK as concerns grow that young people are growing up on a diet of foreign imports on Netflix and YouTube, the head of children’s TV at the BBC has said.

Alice Webb told the Guardian that making domestic content for young audiences is an “absolutely core principle” for the broadcaster and insisted it can compete with Netflix and other international rivals.

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Spending on children’s television by the main UK broadcasters has broadly halved over the last decade and industry research suggests viewing figures are also dwindling. Children between the ages of four and 15 watched one hour and 41 minutes a day of television on average in 2016 according to Ofcom – down 23% in 10 years. In June a repeat of an episode of Blue Peter, which used to be watched by as many as 8 million people, recorded zero viewers when it aired on digital channel CBBC. The BBC said an additional repeat of this episode in a different time slot had an average audience of 46,000, and was viewed 39,000 times on BBC iPlayer.

Streaming services and YouTube have become far more popular with younger viewers than older generations, posing a major challenge to traditional television. Two-thirds of teenagers use YouTube to watch TV programmes and films compared to 38% of adults.

Popular children’s programmes on streaming services include Trollhunters, a US show, on Netflix, and Masha and the Bear, which is Russian, on YouTube.

Under pressure from Ofcom, the media regulator, the BBC announced earlier this year that it would spend an extra £34m on children’s television over the next three years, pushing its annual budget to £124.4m. It has brought back live children’s entertainment on a Saturday morning for the first time in nearly in a decade with the launch of Saturday Mash-Up!

The future of children’s television will be debated next month at the Children’s Global Media Summit, which takes place in Manchester and is chaired by Webb. The event is held every three years and speakers for 2017 include executives from Netflix, Sky, ITV and the BBC.

On the importance of British-made content to the BBC, Webb said: “Obviously that runs through our DNA and it is an absolutely core principle for us that we are serving kids and that they are enjoying distinctive UK content.

“It’s incredibly important and it speaks to why the BBC invested the £34m earlier this year. You will hear us again talking about it at the summit and that is one of the reasons why we are doing this summit: it is finding a way to make sure that we are delivering unique content that helps children make sense of the world around them as they are growing up.

“I think that we have all got a responsibility to make sure that children have got a choice of UK content.”

However, Webb insisted that UK broadcasters were not being overshadowed by international rivals. “I don’t think there is a lack of British content,” she said. “I think that we are absolutely at the forefront of the children’s market and the forefront of the children’s international market. We are incredibly credible to be holding this summit.

“Children’s content is increasingly important to any media organisation, which is why you are seeing digital giants getting more and more kids’ content. If you want to co-create children’s content you very quickly come back to us here – the UK, the BBC. We are open for business. We are making incredibly distinctive content. I think we are in good health, really good health.”

CBBC and CBeebies, the BBC’s digital channels, were both nominated for channel of the year at the British Academy Children’s Awards on Sunday night. However, in a sign of developments in the market, online educational channel TrueTube was nominated for that award while Amazon, Netflix and Sky Kids also received their first nominations for children’s Baftas.

Webb insisted that the BBC could compete with Netflix and other streaming services despite these companies being backed by billions of pounds of investment.

“We are the most watched and the most loved in the UK,” she said. “Children consume children’s BBC more than any other and we are really clear that we will be innovating along with the best to make sure we are still connected with kids and doing our time honoured tradition and purpose of informing, educating and entertaining children.

“My priority is to make sure that we are making incredibly distinctive UK content and that we are delivering to children in the way that they watch it.”

Webb declined to say whether the BBC would bring more children’s programmes back to BBC One and BBC Two from the digital channels despite Saturday Mash-Up! proving “incredibly popular”. However, she said prime time entertainment shows such as Strictly Come Dancing were now as popular with children as Blue Peter.

“We are really proud that children love Strictly Come Dancing as much as they love Blue Peter,” Webb said. “Making sure that we are enabling children to find the content they love is great.”