Word: charren
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Last week Charren announced that ACT would disband at the end of the year. Her reason: the passage of the 1990 Children's Television Act, which sets advertising limits on children's programming and requires TV stations to air at least some fare that serves the educational needs of kids. "For more than 20 years, ACT has tried to get the public-interest laws that govern broadcasting to apply to children," said Charren. "With the passage of the 1990 Children's Television Act, this goal has been achieved. People who want better TV for kids now have Congress on their...
Other organizations will carry on the kidvid cause, and Charren herself will not disappear. But the demise of ACT leaves a void and raises a question: For all Charren's efforts, has children's TV got any better? In some ways, as Charren readily admits, it is worse. In the 1970s, partly because of Charren's lobbying, the networks added a host of informational shows for children, from ABC's Afterschool Specials to CBS's newsmagazine for kids, 30 Minutes. During the Reagan years, however, government regulation eased, and most of those shows were canceled or scaled back. Though...
...gave rise to an even more insidious phenomenon: cartoon shows based on popular toys. Charren sought to ban programs like G.I. Joe and My Little Pony as little more than program-length commercials. Most have since expired from low ratings, but a fresh wave may be on the way: several new shows in development feature snack-food characters like Chester Cheetah, who hawks Cheetos. "It's nauseating," says Charren. "Having turned all the toys into programs in the '80s, now they're going to turn all the logos into programs...
...Children's Television Act will hardly solve all the problems. Its ceilings on kidvid advertising -- 12 minutes an hour on weekdays, 10 1/2 minutes on weekends -- are higher than what the networks currently run. Still, Charren sees the law as a breakthrough, mainly because it threatens stations with the loss of their license if they don't air some educational fare for kids. Says Charren: "That has much more power behind it than the noise of Peggy Charren...
...Charren had an impact, not just because of the causes she championed but because of the ones she didn't. Despite her concern for children, she refused to ally herself with conservative groups fighting to purge TV of excessive sex and violence. "I believe that censorship is worse than any kind of junk on TV," she maintained. Her primary thrust was not for quality (that overused term) so much as for diversity: to give parents and kids more choice. Children's TV may still be a long way from her goal, but it is a lot closer than it would...