Author Description

Turning young children into premature consumers has always been a potential danger of commercial television. In recent years improved marketing technology has enabled the television industry to pinpoint specialized audiences at specific times. Unfortunately, the ability to reach a young audience has not resulted in more inventive programming in the best interests of children. Instead, they have been exploited by advertisers who take advantage of this increasingly lucrative market. These developments have lead to mounting public concern, especially by consumer groups such as Action for Children's Television, which petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to set guidelines to protect children from commercial exploitation. This study, commissioned by ACT, focuses on the economic aspects of commercial children's.television and their relation to FCC public-policy options. William Melody examines the economic characteristics of advertising practices and how they affect programming. He traces the history of children's programming from television's early years, when quality children's shows were used as an incentive to promote the sale of television sets, to the present time of poor-quality, commercial-laden programming that exploits the economic potential of child consumers. Mr. Melody demonstrates clearly that as long as advertisers control programming it will respond to their own vested interests and not to the needs of the child. As a solution, he suggests alternate modes of financing children's television to be implemented gradually. In this way, better programming will be provided without causing significant financial hardship to the broadcast industry.