S.D. Cable TV Outlets to Air Missing Children’s Roll Call

Cable television in San Diego will take the unprecedented step of televising six-time-a-day roll calls of missing children from all over the United States, it was announced Friday.

Cox and Southwestern Cable and the California Center for Missing and Exploited Children, based in San Diego, revealed plans for the cooperative effort to make the faces of missing children familiar to the television-viewing public. Cox and Southwestern are the first local stations to do so.

Judith Schmidt, community relations director for the center, said the made-for-television movie “Adam,” about the plight of a missing child, was the inspiration for the local program. Following the movie on NBC, the network aired a roll call of 60 missing children. Schmidt said as a result of that program eight children were found.

The companies are donating their advertising time to show six spots, 30, 60 and 120 seconds long, each day. Robert McRann, vice president and general manager of Cox Cable, said the public service announcements will play at random times during the day on the most-watched channels for maximum exposure. He said they will air on MTV, ESPN, USA and CNN and other channels.