ENTERTAINMENT : Clinton Asks FCC to Toughen Rules on Children’s Television

Stepping directly into an increasingly contentious debate over television regulation, President Clinton has urged the Federal Communications Commission to require TV broadcasters to air at least three hours of children’s programming per week.

In an unusual one-page letter to FCC Chairman Reed E. Hundt, Clinton said Americans are “disappointed” by the federal government’s enforcement of the 5-year-old Children’s Television Act and he urged the FCC “to review the purpose of the Children’s Television Act” with an eye toward strengthening it.

“I believe the public interest should require broadcasters to air at least three hours per week, and preferably more, of quality children’s programming at reasonable times of the day,” Clinton wrote.

Clinton’s letter comes in the midst of an unprecedented wave of media mergers and just days after a church group and a public interest organization filed a petition with the FCC to block Westinghouse Electric Corp.’s bid to acquire the CBS television network.

The groups, which include the Center for Media Education and the Office of Communications of the United Church of Christ, argue that the deal is not in the public interest because it would promote further media concentration and would fail to promote the airing of more children’s TV shows.

The parties are currently in negotiations, and two sources close to the talks said Westinghouse has indicated that it is prepared to increase children’s programming in order to acquire CBS. Industry sources say they expect similar challenges to be filed against Walt Disney Co.’s proposed acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC Inc., and eventually against Time Warner Inc.’s bid for Turner Broadcasting System Inc.

Clinton’s letter will probably put even more pressure on broadcasters to face the children’s TV issue. Industry observers say they cannot remember a time when a President has personally written to an FCC official to offer his advice.

“The President is trying to light a fire under broadcasters,” said an enthusiastic Hundt, who has given several recent speeches supporting tougher children’s television rules.

“The problem has been that the FCC never put any teeth in [children’s TV] regulations; it was just mouthing platitudes,” Hundt said. But, he vowed, “this commission is going to do something.”

Next month the FCC will begin evaluating public and industry responses to agency proposals aimed at improving the quality of children’s TV. The FCC has proposed requiring broadcasters to submit annual descriptions of their educational and informational programming and requiring broadcasters to air three to five hours per week of programming designed to serve the educational and informational needs of children.