TELEVISION - Feb. 24, 1996

Program Advertising?: Toy companies should be banned from paying television stations to run shows based on their products, a children’s media watchdog group said Friday. The Washington-based Center for Media Education, calling current children’s TV programs “largely ads for toys,” said it will petition the Federal Trade Commission, which is currently studying kids programming, to impose such a ban. According to the watchdog group’s executive director, toy companies often develop a new product and then seek programmers and syndicators to produce programs featuring the toy. Local stations are promised advertising commitments if they run the shows. The Federal Communications Commission bans toy commercials during a show based on that toy. But there is no prohibition on buying ads for the toy at other times in order to gain air time for the show.