Educational TV Programs Lacking, Activists Charge : Television: Stations were accused, at a House subcommittee meeting, of redefining existing fare to fit the guidelines of a 1990 act requiring such shows.

Declaring that the nation has entered a “Clinton-Gore era” in children’s programming, members of a congressional committee chastised television broadcasters Wednesday for failing to provide educational programming for young people.

Under the Children’s Television Act of 1990--which originated in the same committee--television broadcasters were ordered to produce a certain amount of “educational and informative” programming, or risk losing their broadcast licenses.

Instead, children’s advocates told the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance on Wednesday, stations simply redefined the content of existing cartoon and sitcom fare on their license renewal forms. In one example, managers of one station wrote that the futuristic cartoon “The Jetsons”--featuring nuclear families zipping about town in spaceships--”instructs children about life in the year 2000.”

Children’s advocates said they were not asking for censorship or government control of children’s television shows. They asked commercial broadcasters to apply the same creativity that public television does to such successful shows as “Sesame Street” and “Barney and Friends.”

As the committee chairman, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), looked at two National Assn. of Broadcasters representatives awaiting their turn to testify, he said, “Broadcasters can and will do better.”

The two executives--Brooke Spectorsky, vice president and general manager of WUAB-TV in Cleveland, and Paul LaCamera, vice president and station manager of WCVB-TV in Boston--run what children’s advocates agreed are among the most socially responsible stations in the country.

Even so, the two executives protested on behalf of the industry that new, innovative programming takes time to develop. Two years wasn’t enough time, they said, to create, film and find commercial sponsors for new shows.

“These are transitional problems,” Spectorsky said. “All the incentives are in place. The act has created a new demand, and the markets are responding.”

They also said that many small stations lack the experience and money to develop educational programming and that many broadcasters were still under contract to carry cartoons at the time the act was approved.

Despite those limitations, they said, some new educational shows have been aired, including the syndicated “Scratch” and “Beakman’s World.”

The congressional hearing came a week after the Federal Communications Commission proposed stricter rules on broadcasters regarding children’s television, warning station managers that shows such as “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “The Flintstones” would not pass regulatory muster as educational or informational programming. Previously, the FCC gave station managers broader leeway in interpreting rules for high-quality programming.

The agency also delayed renewing the licenses of seven stations until they prove they are doing a better job of meeting children’s broadcasting needs.

Before deregulation of commercial television in 1984, broadcasters adhered to a strict standard requiring them to provide children’s programs. Children’s advocates charge that after deregulation, educational programs such as CBS’ “Captain Kangaroo” and ABC’s “Schoolhouse Rock” were dropped in favor of adult programs or money-making cartoons, whose main purpose often was to promote the toys featured as characters in the shows.

The Children’s Television Act first reached the White House in 1988, but it died when President Ronald Reagan refused to sign it. When Congress passed the act a second time in 1990, President George Bush allowed the bill to become law without his signature.

A study published last September by the Center for Media Education found children’s television programming remained largely unchanged since the act’s passage.