Regulations on children's television programming in the United States

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the United States of America, established by the Communications Act of 1934, is in place in order to regulate interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. Children's programming has not been exempt from FCC regulation and has been subject to multiple rules and regulations, particularly over the last few decades.

Background and History

Even though television has been around for over half a century, regular broadcasting did not come into the picture until the late 1940s. Television started out with two children’s television shows called Animal Clinic and Acrobat Ranch. Children’s programming progressed rapidly of the cable industry in the 1980s. Over time, children’s programming channels formed into Discovery, Learning Channel, USA, TBS, The Family Channel, and Lifetime. It wasn’t until the 1950s that parents began to concern themselves with the programs being aired to their children. Not only parents, but social scientists and teachers started to concern themselves too. They took it into their own hands to ask the legislators to put into consideration to do something about the harmful effects of television viewing. Shortly after, research began and there have been many studies on the harmful effects. Scientists monitered, analyzed, and explained the effects television has on children. The FCC and FTC then formed. Because of the research, the FCC and FTC decided to have rules and regulations on children’s programming. The very first act was the Children’s Television Act which specifically regulated children’s television.

Children's Educational Television

Safe Harbor Hours

The term "safe harbor" refers to the hours during which broadcasters may transmit material deemed indecent for children. This "safe harbor", enforced by the Federal Communications Commission, extends—legally—from 10 PM to 6 AM and was established by the US Supreme Court case FCC v. Pacifica. This "safe harbor" is based on evidence that children 17 years of age and under are less likely to be in the audience during these hours.

Sexual content and foul language are lawfully channeled to times of the day when children are less likely to be the broadcast audience. Paradoxically, viewing televised violence is perceived to have a more harmful effect on children than fleeting expletives or brief nudity. With respect to violent program content, the research suggests that younger children are most at risk, possibly requiring a different conclusion as to the ages of children to be protected, the appropriate "safe harbor" hours.

Children's Television Act of 1990

In 1990 Congress enacted the Children's Television Act (CTA) in order to increase the amount of informational and educational programming available for children on television. The FCC has adopted rules in order to carry out this mandate. Television stations, under FCC rule, must:

• Provide parents and consumers with information about core programs being aired
• Define the type of programs that qualify as core programs
• Air at least three hours per week of core programs

Core Programming

Core programs are designed to serve the educational and informational needs of children (ages 16 and under). Core programming must be a regularly scheduled weekly program that is at least thirty minutes in length and aired between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m.

Commercial Time Limits

Children 12 years old and younger are more susceptible to the power of television advertisements than adults. Therefore the FCC enforces time limits (10.5 minutes per hour on weekends and 12 minutes per hour on weekends) on commercials for television shows aimed at this audience.

Program Length Commercials

Consists of commercials using a product that is associated with the program being aired. It also consists of programs in which a product or service is being advertised within the program. The commercial is not separated from the program, therefore making it a program-length commercial. The reason for this being prohibited is because the FCC fear that children will not be able to recognize the difference between the programming and the commercial which could lead to them thinking the entire program is one big commercial. As FCC Comissioner Michael J. Copps stated,“ Although the kids with their remotes in hand won’t know it, that single click of the button will transport them beyond the regulated world of television, with its restrictions on commercial messages aimed at children, to an Internet bazaar bereft of any rules. Shouldn’t we get a handle on this before really harmful consequences are felt?” Adding to the idea that the impressionability of children is a serious concern: The impressionability of children can lead to "nag factor" situations; situations brought on by advertisements whose effects are amplified when children are involved. These types of situations can be reduced when the FCC implements measures to reduce program length commercials.

Obtaining Children's Programming Information

One of the main goals of the FCC's rules is to provide more information about educational programming to parents and other members of the public. The FCC forces the "E/I" (Educational/Informational) icon to be used to identify core educational programs.Television stations must provide the information identifying these programs to publishers of television guides and television listings. These rules also require television stations to file quarterly reports with the FCC (which are to be made available to the public) regarding their educational programming.

1996 Mandate

Federal Communications Commission unanimously passed a regulation that requires television stations to show three hours of children's educational programming each week. Rather than an inflexible three-hour requirement, the nations television stations be required either to broadcast three hours' worth of regularly scheduled half-hour educational shows for children weekly, or to satisfy the F.C.C. that they offer enough other programs or public-service activities to fulfill their legal mandate. The mandate originally from the Children's Television Act of 1990, which required stations to better serve educational or informational needs of children but set no hourly quota. The law left it to the FCC to determine compliance. Many stations either counted dubious shows, like The Jetsons, as educational, or added some educational shows but scheduled them at 5:30 or 6 A.M. The new rule tightens the definition of educational programming, requiring that it be specifically designed to serve an educational purpose.

Fines

The FCC takes it’s rules and regulations very seriously; and rules and regulations are only as good as the enforcement that comes with them. If rules and regulations are not properly enforced, then they are practically void because there is no punishment or threat associated with breaking the rules and regulations set in place by the authorities. The FCC must monitor children’s programming and create regulations that must be followed specifically for children’s programming, with correlating punishment. The most common way to punish a station for breaking a rule or regulation set in place by the FCC is fines. The fines charged against the stations vary based upon which regulation they went against and how badly they broke the rule. On average, fines range from $25,000-$70,000 per station

One of the largest fines was for $70,000 given for a program that was "program length". This occured when a commercial for a memorabilia website shown during a "Yu-Gi-Oh " television program contained a "very brief" reference to Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards . In so doing, the station is considered to have exceeded the commercial limits by the entire length of the program less the number of commercial minutes allowed.

The FCC found a Pokemon program to be a program length commercial in which a Pokemon game card with the letters "MON" was briefly displayed in a Nintendo GameBoy commercial during the show. In addition to these violations, other cited violations included failing to provide program guide publishers with information regarding the target child audience of core programs; failing to update the public file regarding compliance; and failing to publicize the existence and location of the station's children's television programming reports.

In 2007, the FCC fined a record of $24 million against the spanish-language television company Univision for airing a program called Compliance Al Rescate ( in english it translates to "Friends to the Rescue"), which was similar to the original movie The Parent Trap. The movie had the same story line about 11-year-old identical twins who discovered they were separated at birth and then proceeded to swap lives.

In 2004, Disney and Viacom were fined with $1.5 million for violating the amount of commercials that kids were exposed to. Viacom had to pay $1 million for airing their commercials excessively, while Disney was left to pay $500,000 since their Disney commercials aired on the ABC Family Channel.

Rules

Multicasting Rule

This order is a revised version of the educational and informational programming processing guideline that the FCC adopted in 2004 for DTV multicasting. This order clarifies the limit on the repeat of core programs that applies to DTV channels. On the other hand, this does not apply to analog channels. You will now be able to use different episodes of the same program to fulfill your necessities with no time restrictions. Another positive aspect is that you will also be able to use the same episodes that aired in previous weeks on a different stream to do this.

Preemption Rule

In order to qualify a program as "core programming", children's programming must be regularly scheduled. This means that the program must be scheduled to air once per week at the least and must also air on an ordinary basis.

Website Rule

In the 2004 order, the FCC put restrictions of website addresses aired during children's programming. This rule was applied to both analog and digital programming. Although the FCC put restricts on this, there were a few guidelines that programmers had to follow in order to do so:

• The website includes a legitimate amount of program-related or other noncommercial content
• The website is not essentially intended for commercial purposes
• There is distinguishable marked pages to determine noncommercial from commercial sections
• The page that directs viewers on the website is not primarily used for commercial purposes

Host Selling Rule

The Commission has prohibited the use of show hosts or program characters to sell products in commercials aired either during or after the children's programs.

Promotions Rule: Definition of "Commercial Matter."

The 2004 order expanded the definition of "commercial matter," for purposes of calculating compliance with the commercial limits for children's programs, to include all program promotions other than for children's educational or informational programs. That expansion covered both analog and digital channels, and its effective date was also postponed. The new order changes the rule and provides that (1) promotions for educational and informational programming on any channel and (2) promotions for any children's or other age-appropriate programming appearing on the same channel (whether or not informational or educational) will not be considered commercial matter.

Advocacy groups

Action for Children's Television

Action for Children's Television (ACT) was a grass-roots activist group that was founded by Peggy Charren and a group of "housewives and mothers" in her home in Newton, Massachusetts in 1968. The members of A.C.T. were initially concerned with the lack of quality television programming offered to children and were dedicated to improving the quality programming offered to them. In 1970 A.C.T. petitioned the Federal Communications Commission asking that television stations be required to provide more programming for the child viewer. While concerned about "commercial abuses targeted to children," ACT took a stance, in Charren's words, "violently opposed to censorship." Of particular concern was their finding that one-third of all commercials aimed at children were for vitamins. Partially due to their efforts, the FCC enacted rules pertaining to program length commercials, host selling, and the placement of separation devices between commercials and children's programming. A.C.T. was responsible for bringing many cases before the FCC including a major media case law Action for Children's Television, et al. v. Federal Communications Commission and the United States of America (821. F. 2d 741. D.C. Cir. 1987). One of the major successes of A.C.T. was the passing of the Children's Television Act of 1990. Shortly after the passing of this act, Charren announced the closing of Action for Children's Television, suggesting that it was now up to individual citizens' groups to police the airwaves. It was disbanded in 1992. At its height, A.C.T. included 20,000 volunteer members and an operational budget of up to a half a million dollars. Critics of A.C.T. accused the Action for Children's Television of being pro-censorship or undermining funding for children's programming.