Making the Children’s Hours Count : Founder of ACT Closing Up Shop After 24 Years of Watchdog Work

Children in the United States average four hours of television viewing a day, seven days a week, year-round. It is more time then they spend doing any other activity except sleeping.

Parents everywhere worry about the constant exposure to violence and to sexual and racial stereotypes as well as the dwindling attention span of the average youngster raised on a diet of quickly changing images. But the compelling allure of the “boob tube,” the “electronic baby-sitter,” “the plug-in drug” is practically unrivaled. It is the most powerful, cost-effective instrument of education and entertainment ever devised.

For almost a quarter of a century, Action for Children’s Television has been a relentless crusader for higher-quality programming in children’s television. The nonprofit activist organization has been the watchdog for an industry that ACT says largely tends to exploit rather than enlighten children.

By the end of this year, however, ACT will have closed its doors and passed the reins of advocacy to other more community-oriented organizations. With the passage of the landmark Children’s Television Act of 1990, which addressed ACT’s primary goals of increasing choice and decreasing commercialization, the members of the organization feel their work is done.

The Children’s Television Act directs the Federal Communications Commission to monitor stations, ensuring that they serve the educational and informational needs of children and using this criteria as a condition of license renewal. The bill also requires the FCC to examine the inherent commercialism of shows based on toys, such as “GI Joe.” Commercial minutes per hour are limited to 10.5 during weekends and 12 on weekdays (down from 12 minutes weekends and 14 minutes weekdays).

ACT had wanted even more stringent limitations; in comparison, average commercial time on regular prime-time programming is only 8 minutes. “It’s amazing how willing we are to do to kids what we don’t accept for ourselves,” said Peggy Charren, ACT’s president and founder.

Charren has been the guiding force behind ACT since its inception in 1968. A feisty, rather salty grandmother of four, she is respected by friends and foes alike.

Frequent adversary Jeff Baumann, executive vice president and general counsel of the National Assn. of Broadcasters, said: “I believe in maximum broadcaster discretion, not mandated programming and advertising limits. Peggy is perceived as a thorn in the paw of TV broadcasts, but the industry respects her. She is a person of integrity, straightforward and upfront.”

When Charren began ACT, television for children was mostly monster cartoons, “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” and a few animal-oriented programs. With the birth of her second daughter, Charren gave up various projects in children’s publishing and concert promotions to become a stay-at-home mom.

She said, “There were really two reasons I started ACT: lousy day-care and the sameness of television.”

Charren called an informal meeting in her Newton, Mass. living room, inviting mothers, teachers, local broadcasters, other “politically sensitive characters.” As a child of the McCarthy era and a violent opponent of censorship, she took an open-minded approach.

“The first words out of my mouth were, ‘What do you think we can do to improve children’s television without censoring what’s already out there?,’ ” Charren said. “We wanted a broadening, not narrowing of options.”

The direction ACT chose was based on a simple premise. “The laws that govern public broadcasting say that in exchange for being allowed a chunk of a limited broadcasting spectrum, you have to serve the public,” Charren said. “There was the hook for us to hang our campaign on. What ACT said was that children are people too.”

The core of ACT was four women with young children. By 1970, the organization had a $165,000 two-year grant from the Markle Foundation, which concurrently funded the fledgling “Sesame Street.” “We had no office, no secretary, no telephone and we were very careful how to spend that money.”

In February, 1970, ACT made its first approach to the FCC. Three of the group’s members flew to Washington to meet with the commissioners.

“We later found out that it was the first time the FCC had met with the public that way,” Charren recalled. “We met all afternoon and presented a simple one-page petition that said every station should provide two hours a day of programming for children (we figured we’d negotiate down to one hour), and that the hosts on children’s programs shouldn’t be allowed to sell. Captain Kangaroo at that time would say, ‘Tie your shoes, look both ways before you cross the street and get a Schwinn bike.’ We felt it would be better if product information came from somebody who wasn’t such a father figure to the nation.”

The press picked up on the petition and a copy was published in the Saturday Morning Review, which solicited readers’ comments. When the FCC subsequently issued a favorable policy statement, broadcasters began to take note and programming for children became a hot topic.

During the same year, ACT petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to examine advertising to children. At the time, one third of all children’s advertising was for vitamins. “We thought pills were an extraordinarily inappropriate product to pitch to children,” Charren said. “There’s something idiotic about selling to children something that’s packaged in a bottle with a child-proof cap and comes with the warning ‘Keep out of children’s reach.’ ”

ACT initially approached the National Assn. of Broadcasters, which contended that vitamins weren’t pills but “food supplements.” “The fact that they weren’t responding to a situation that was positively dangerous to children caused us to have a significant distrust of self-regulation,” Charren said. “We never went to the industry again. We went to the law.”

ACT then filed a 6-inch-thick brief with the FTC. In a rather extraordinary coincidence of timing, a child from the Midwest ended up in the hospital from consuming an entire bottle of children’s vitamins, claiming, “Captain Kangaroo told me to.” ACT’s case was made, and vitamin advertising was stopped within a year. The ruling put ACT on the map and gave the organization national visibility and respect, as well as clout within the broadcasting industry.

ACT’s philosophy was straightforward:

--Broadcasters have a responsibility to entertain and enlighten children without exploitation.

--Children’s television needs greater choice and diversity in programming, not censored or watered-down adult fare. “Parents can turn off TV programs they deem objectionable, but they can’t turn on what’s missing,” Charren said.

--The commercialization of children’s TV should be severely limited, in terms of product-based shows as well as commercials within programs

--Parents have a responsibility to control the use of television in the home.

This philosophy set the tone for quality children’s television to flourish. During the 1970s, educational television for children was perhaps at its zenith. There were news shows for kids, a varied menu of specials, even a children’s film festival on Saturday mornings.

Then came the Reagan Administration and deregulation, which changed the nature of the FCC. Rules against cross-ownership of television stations were eliminated, licenses were extended and renewals were perfunctory, with credentials submitted on postcards. Networks responded by canceling most of their children’s programming beyond the ever-popular and lucrative Saturday morning cartoons.

Also, the 1969 FCC ruling against the “program-length commercial” was ignored. With the 1982 special “Strawberry Shortcake,” based on the character of a doll, the floodgates were flung open for toy-oriented programs, and there were eight series within the year. “We filed a petition with the FCC and thought we were going to walk because there was already a commission policy against program-length commercials. The commission overturned the policy, ignoring all the clues that said, ‘This is not OK.’

During the 1980s, many broadcasters and entertainment companies became partners in both programs and merchandising lines. More than 60 toys were turned into TV series. It was almost unheard of for a toy company to launch an important line of toys without plans for a TV show.

Conversely, most new children’s shows were developed with firm prospects that the characters could be marketed as toys.

“That’s when ACT went to Congress, because Congress has oversight of the FCC,” Charren said. “Our superhero was Ed Markey, the congressman from Massachusetts. He became chairman of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee. He and several others got a bill to Reagan’s desk, but since it was just prior to the election, Reagan pocket-vetoed the bill. We tried again and eventually got the bill to Bush’s desk.” Bush let it pass without his signature.

When the bill went into effect in 1991, the FCC adopted rules that gave broadcasters significant latitude in complying with the law’s demands. For example, the commission set up no specific minimum standards for educational children’s programming, but rather required only that stations keep records of the amount of educational programming. The program-length commercial was regulated only by restricting advertisement of the toy itself during the program--the toy could be advertised during the next time slot.

ACT’s follow-up plan was “Choices for Children,” a grass-roots campaign to help communities make the bill work. A campaign kit included suggestions for how people could talk to their local broadcasters and lists of TV station license renewal dates. Packets were distributed through a coalition of 60 organizations with membership totaling more than 60 million.

ACT, which announced its intention to close in January, and Charren are the recipients of numerous awards, including a Trustees Award (a special Emmy from the National Academy of Arts and Sciences). “They threw me this formal party and everybody got up and said all these wonderful things. Just to cut the sentiment, I said in my acceptance speech. ‘I hope you’ll all go out and make wonderful children’s programs. If you don’t, I’ll see you in court.”

Last week Charren received the prized Peabody Award for “a lifetime of service.”

Charren’s concerns won’t abate with ACT’s closing. “I think that public broadcasting is an endangered species. It’s outrageous what some of these conservatives say about not funding public television because that’s the only place where the diversity that makes up children is taken care of--where the diversity of traditions are presented, where you see math and science.

“One of these conservatives, (Laurence) Jarvik, who walks the narrow-minded halls of the Heritage Foundation, asked, ‘How good is Big Bird when we still have graffiti and illiteracy?’ as if funding “Sesame Street” should solve all the problems of children in America. This is the way these guys think. It is horrifying. And these are the friends of our present administration. If we don’t understand that the box that’s going to make the most difference is not the television box but the ballot box, we’re going to be in trouble for a number of years to come.”