Children S Television

New rules promulgated by the Federal Communications Commission on children's television add up to considerably less than a meaningful blueprint for improving juvenile programming. Instead of tackling the problem -- children's shows that seek to sell products rather than teach or even entertain -- the guidelines merely establish selling parameters for stations and advertisers.Under these standards, adopted to carry out the Children's Television Act of 1990, commercials during these shows would be limited to 10.5 minutes an hour on weekends and 12 minutes an hour on weekdays; stations and cable operators would be required to keep records on their efforts to provide educational programming; shows based on toys would be allowed so long as ads for the product don't appear during the show.

WHO CAN ignore the power of television -- especially children's television? Evangelist Jerry Falwell couldn't -- he accused "Teletubbies'" Tinky Winky, the purple one with the red purse, of advocating a gay image to children.Remember when either Barney, the purple T-Rex, or Arthur the four-eyed armadillo, was the toy to get for Christmas? And Nickelodeon, the No. 1 children's network, has become MTV for grade school kids.With new networks such as Toon Disney, Fox Family and Noggin aiming for kids, some would say that things are going too far. But I couldn't conceive of a world without children's television.

Children's Television Workshop, the educational production company responsible for bringing "Sesame Street" to public television, has announced it would begin work on an ambitious new series intended to improve children's reading and writing skills.The series, called "The Ghostwriter," is scheduled to begin on PBS stations in fall 1992. The target audience will be children 7 to 10 years old.CTW announced the beginning of production after receiving a commitment for a $5 million grant from Nike Inc., the maker of athletic shoes.

Parents who want to encourage their children to spend more time reading and less time watching television might want to tune in to the Fifth National TV-Turnoff Week, which begins Thursday.For seven days through April 28, an estimated 6 million people are expected to voluntarily abstain from television viewing, according to the program's sponsor, TV-Free America.Some might mark their participation by hiding their remotes, hanging "No TV" flags outdoors, or, the nonprofit organization suggests, stretching crime scene tape across their television screens.

It's Saturday morning and the kids are watching "Garfield," "Teen-age Mutant Ninja Turtles," "Captain Planet" and the new "Hammerman," a weekly animated series hosted by the rapper M. C. Hammer. What these shows have in common, beside third-rate animation and dreadful stories, is that they appeal to boys more than girls. In fact, the entire Saturday morning television lineup has no girl heroes and no show, with the possible exception of the insipid "Muppet Babies," directed at girls.Television executives have been congratulating themselves in recent seasons for their depictions of forceful, rounded women such as "Murphy Brown," the "Designing Women" and "Roseanne."

WASHINGTON -- With a second White House TV "summit" set for tomorrow, the White House has been laboring furiously to bring the networks to a compromise on providing three hours of educational programming for children per week.President Clinton has made children's television a campaign issue, and White House officials had hoped that the summit would be a high-profile celebration of the creation of government guidelines on children's television by the Federal Communications Commission.But the FCC, under Chairman Reed Hundt, a Clinton appointee, has been locked in a stalemate over the children's TV requirements.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Peggy Charren contends Saturday-morning network television has gotten so bad that parents shouldn't let their kids watch it.In more than 20 years of trying to get better shows for children on TV, she's never told parents to do anything like that."

The drumbeat of debate on children's television has been steadily rising along the Potomac this summer, but the question is whether it's a genuine call for much-needed reform or merely election-year politics.A major announcement is expected -- perhaps, as soon as tomorrow when the Federal Communications Commission meets -- saying that the panel has set guidelines aimed at making every television station carry at least three hours of educational programming for children a week.The guidelines appear to be a done deal.

Are you for Big Bird or big business? Are you on the side of little kids or the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers?There is a tremendous battle going on in Washington over children's television, and, as a result, these are the kinds of loaded questions parents are asking their elected officials and federal regulators.On one side of the ramparts is the commercial broadcasting industry -- the networks, their affiliates and local independent television stations. On the other is a coalition of education, health and child advocacy organizations, ranging from the National Parent Teacher Association to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Not long ago, if families here wanted to partake of the children's offerings on public television, they could turn to Washington-area public TV, or they were pretty much out of luck. No longer.With the launch of its "Children's Channel" yesterday, Maryland Public Television has one of the more extensive schedules for kids' shows among public broadcasters. MPT, which serves 1 million households from southern Pennsylvania to northern Virginia, doubled children's programming to 40 hours a week.

TELEVISION STATIONS actually went off the air at night when Newton Minow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, declared the medium a "vast wasteland" 35 years ago. Then there were just three networks supplying nearly all the programming, including "Gunsmoke," "Candid Camera" and "The Ed Sullivan Show." Now cable and satellite beam dozens of channels to most American homes.And yet television remains a wasteland, far more vast than it was in the days of Mr. Minow's famous speech.

WASHINGTON -- Reversing a historic trend, the nation's broadcasters consented yesterday to provide at least three hours of children's educational programming a week -- or risk losing their licenses.The agreement, brokered by the White House over the weekend, was announced by President Clinton as he kicked off a three-hour conference on children's television in the East Room.Noting that a typical American pre-schooler watches 28 hours of TV a week, Clinton said:"I cannot imagine anything that serves the public interest more than seeing to it that we give our children at least three hours of educational television a week."

WASHINGTON -- With a second White House TV "summit" set for tomorrow, the White House has been laboring furiously to bring the networks to a compromise on providing three hours of educational programming for children per week.President Clinton has made children's television a campaign issue, and White House officials had hoped that the summit would be a high-profile celebration of the creation of government guidelines on children's television by the Federal Communications Commission.But the FCC, under Chairman Reed Hundt, a Clinton appointee, has been locked in a stalemate over the children's TV requirements.

The drumbeat of debate on children's television has been steadily rising along the Potomac this summer, but the question is whether it's a genuine call for much-needed reform or merely election-year politics.A major announcement is expected -- perhaps, as soon as tomorrow when the Federal Communications Commission meets -- saying that the panel has set guidelines aimed at making every television station carry at least three hours of educational programming for children a week.The guidelines appear to be a done deal.

Are you for Big Bird or big business? Are you on the side of little kids or the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers?There is a tremendous battle going on in Washington over children's television, and, as a result, these are the kinds of loaded questions parents are asking their elected officials and federal regulators.On one side of the ramparts is the commercial broadcasting industry -- the networks, their affiliates and local independent television stations. On the other is a coalition of education, health and child advocacy organizations, ranging from the National Parent Teacher Association to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The gray, Buster Brown wig has been replaced by white hair of his own. And he's wearing a camel's hair sport coat instead of that bright red jacket with giant patch pockets. He carries a speech instead of a jingling ring of keys.But as soon as you hear that whispery, breathy voice, pingpong balls rain on your head and you realize, "It is Captain Kangaroo!"Suddenly, memories blink awake like Grandfather Clock. Even though you have your own Bunnyrabbit now -- a willful child who pushes all your buttons -- you feel as if you are back in a black-and-white, small-screen time.

Couch potatoes come in all ages. But the youngest ones are often those most pummeled by television advertising. They are also the most susceptible to the lures of snappy advertising and least able to distinguish commercials from real programs.Children in this country simply watch too much television -- 25 hours a week on average -- and since 1984, when the FCC rescinded guidelines limiting commercials during children's shows, kids have been subjected to more than their share of commercials -- including whole shows designed around specific toys, making them, in effect, program-length commercials.

There's going to be twice as much Big Bird, Barney and Mister Rogers for kids in Maryland and Northern Virginia starting next week.On Tuesday, Maryland Public Television will double its children's programming to 40 hours a week -- packaging itself as "The Children's Channel," MPT announced yesterday. This will include a 5 1/2 -hour block of children's programming with a show host each weekday, starting at 7:30 a.m.MPT, which is affiliated with PBS, broadcasts in the Baltimore metropolitan area on Channels 67 and 22.Its move comes at a time when networks and commercial broadcast stations are under fire from Congress and the Federal Communications Commission for failing to comply with the 1990 Children's Television Act, which mandates that stations carry educational programming for kids.

If someone proposed to solve the problem of children smoking cigarettes by forcing tobacco companies to create new low-nicotine brands especially for children, that person would be ridiculed even in Washington. Yet, if someone proposes to solve the problem of children going brain-dead from watching too much television by dictating federal standards for children's TV, that person is hailed as a social savior.As the Federal Communications Commission prepares to impose onerous burdens on the nation's broadcasters and cable companies, a re-examination of the Children's Television Act is long overdue.

Challenging television networks to put as much effort into educational children's programming as they do in developing dramas about the Menendez brothers or Amy Fisher, a congressional subcommittee yesterday escalated its crusade to improve kids' TV.And, if the networks don't start complying with the Children's Television Act on their own, the government is going to make them.So warned a subcommittee chaired by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., during yesterday's hearing on the TV industry's compliance with the 1991 legislation.