FCC Likely to Delay Consideration of Children’s Shows : Television: Divided agency has drawn fire for inactivity on the educational quota plan, which broadcasters call illegal.

A deeply divided Federal Communications Commission is expected today to put off consideration of a controversial plan that would require television stations to air a certain number of children’s educational programs each week.

The delay on the long-simmering issue has infuriated children’s TV groups, which loudly criticized the FCC this week for not moving more quickly to strengthen one of the few statutory enforcement tools the agency has over the nation’s 1,000 commercial TV broadcasters.

“The entire commission’s approach to the children’s television issue has been inadequate and a horrible failure,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Media Education, a Washington-based public interest group. “That there is not support on the commission for a serious strengthening of the rules is outrageous.”

Under the proposed plan, the FCC would require each TV station to broadcast at least three hours of children’s programs per week in the first year and more in later years. But station owners could trade away all but one hour of the programming obligation to other stations in a sort of free-market system.

Broadcasters opposed the plan, saying it amounted to a quota and infringement of First Amendment rights.

Hopes for quick action by the five-member FCC dimmed earlier this week when commission Chairman Reed Hundt proved unable to assemble sufficient support for the plan.

Hundt was eager to resolve the children’s programming issue in part because of a separate debate over whether TV stations should have to pay for added channel capacity to make an industrywide transition to high-definition television.

Some members of Congress want to auction additional channel space to broadcasters for billions of dollars. Hundt has suggested that broadcasters might obtain the additional space without cost in return for children’s programming.

Republican Commissioner Andrew Barrett has resisted asking broadcasters to meet a certain number of hours of children’s educational programming. Commissioner James H. Quello, a Democrat, also criticized Hundt’s plan, saying, “I’ve been a longtime opponent of content regulation.”

“There are so many other ways of meeting children’s programming needs besides commercial TV,” Quello added, citing videocassettes, cable TV and computer software programs.

The agency’s newest commissioners, Rachelle Chong and Susan Ness, are said to be undecided about the issue.

Commissioners are expected to embrace a plan that takes no immediate action on imposing new programming rules.

The Clinton Administration and broadcasters have long been at odds over the vague legal obligations Congress imposed on broadcasters when it enacted a law in 1990 that requires broadcasters to air programs for the educational and informational needs of children as a condition of government renewal of their licenses to broadcast over public airways.

Since its passage, the law has had little effect on programming. Some stations have been accused of categorizing cartoons such as “The Flintstones” as educational, while other stations have relegated children’s programming to fringe viewing hours.

To toughen the statute, Hundt--a schoolmate at different times of both President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore--had proposed a plan that would require each station to broadcast at least three hours of children’s programs a week in the first year.

“Congress did not contemplate any type of quantification of children’s programming,” said Henry Bauman, head of legal affairs for the National Assn. of Broadcasters, a Washington-based trade association. “I certainly think that any type of regulation of this sort raises significant First Amendment issues.”