Children's Television Act of 1990: Impact on Broadcasters and Cable Operators
| Publication year | 1992 |
| Pages | 683 |
| Citation | Vol. 21 No. 4 Pg. 683 |
1992, April, Pg. 683. Children's Television Act of 1990: Impact On Broadcasters and Cable Operators
On October 18, 1990, the U.S. Congress enacted the Children's Television Act of 1990(fn1) ("Act"). Title I of the Act provides for the regulation of children's television programming by requiring the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") to do the following: (1) adopt final rules implementing the provision of the Act regarding limits on the amount of advertising in children's television programming; (2) consider, in its review of television broadcast license renewal applications, whether a broadcaster has complied with the advertising limits and has served the educational and informational needs of children through the broadcaster's overall programming; and (3) complete a pending FCC proceeding defining a program-length children's commercial.(fn2) Describing the need for legislation, the U.S. Senate noted that by age eighteen, the average child will have watched at least 15,000 hours of television and will have seen more than 200,000 commercials.
This article examines the new rules and their impact on television and cable programming. It also outlines steps that cable operators and television broadcasters must take to document compliance with the rules.
Over the last thirty years, the FCC has vacillated on the issue of regulating children's television. In 1974, the FCC published the "Children's Television Report and Policy Statement"(fn3) ("1974 Policy Statement") setting forth voluntary guidelines limiting advertising during children's programming to no more than 12 minutes per hour during weekday programming and 9.5 minutes per hour during weekend programming. In addition, the 1974 Policy Statement set forth a number of FCC "expectations."
First, it urged the television industry to increase the amount of children's programming and to schedule such programming to be aired more proportionately throughout the entire week, rather than limiting children's programming primarily to Saturday and Sunday mornings. Second, it advocated eliminating the use, during children's programming, of "host-selling" and "tie-ins" (the practice in which performers, including cartoon characters, use or mention specific products or brand names during the program or during commercials aired during or immediately adjacent to the program). Third, the FCC asked the industry clearly to separate program and commercial material during children's programming. The rationale behind the FCC's guidelines was based, in part, on a belief that children are "far more trusting of and vulnerable to commercial 'pitches' than are adults,"(fn4) and that children are unable to recognize the difference between programs and commercials.
In 1984, the FCC repealed a number of policies regarding advertising practices of television broadcasters because it believed that market forces were more appropriate indicators of reasonable commercial levels than were its own rules.(fn5) The commercial limit guidelines set forth in the 1974 Policy Statement relating to children's television programming were included in the deregulatory order.
This shift in policy resulted in the commencement of an action against the FCC and a finding in 1987 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that the FCC's order deregulating commercialization guidelines for children's programming was not adequately justified.(fn6) The court remanded the case to the FCC, requesting the FCC to further substantiate the basis for its repeal of the children's television programming guidelines. In response to the court's remand, the FCC initiated a Notice of Inquiry regarding commercialization in children's programming. However, prior to the enactment of the Act, the FCC had not taken any further action with respect to the matter.
The Act provides that television broadcast licensees and cable television operators must limit the duration of advertising in children's programming to not more than 10.5 minutes of commercial matter per hour on weekends and not more than 12 minutes per hour on weekdays ("10.5/12--minute
"Commercial matter" consists of "air time sold for the purposes of selling a product" or service.(fn8) To be sold, the advertiser must give some valuable consideration either directly or indirectly to the broadcaster or cablecaster as...
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