TV Class Is Now in Session

When youngsters curl up with Saturday morning cartoons and other children’s shows on broadcast television this fall, they’re going to be greeted with “kidvid” that has been vitamin-enriched.

Beginning Monday, broadcast stations must provide at least three hours a week of educational programming for children. The shows must be “specifically designed to meet the educational needs of children under the age of 16,” according to requirements set by the Federal Communications Commission.

Stations have been required since last January to designate educational children’s programs with an E/I symbol, for educational/informational, but they haven’t been required to meet a minimum amount of such fare until now.

Accordingly, there’s a new crop of children’s shows arriving in the next few weeks that, in industry parlance, is “FCC-friendly.”

On Sept. 6, for example, ABC is premiering a new block of children’s shows that includes an animated series called “Science Court,” a Harvard-educated version of Disney’s “101 Dalmatians” and two cartoons, “Recess” and “Pepper Ann,” about the emotional lives of children. CBS, meanwhile, has commissioned a new version of a former PBS series, “The Ghostwriter Mysteries,” and an adaptation of “Wheel of Fortune” that includes a virtual-reality Vanna White.

NBC is adding a new sitcom about teenagers, “City Kids,” to “Saved by the Bell” and other teen-oriented sitcoms on Saturday morning. And the WB network in October will introduce an animated show from producer Norman Lear, “Channel Umptee-3,” about kids who take over a TV station.

If some of these programs don’t sound like what your children are studying in school, you can go to the head of the class for what is likely to be the next hot debate in children’s television.

The term “educational” doesn’t necessarily mean related to curriculum. The FCC left the definition broad enough to include programs that serve a child’s intellectual, cognitive, social or emotional needs. At least initially, it is up to broadcasters to decide what qualifies. The commission will monitor the classifications, but it intends to rely on the reaction of the public and academics to help determine whether the new shows fit the bill.

“The FCC’s definition is so broad that virtually anything could be counted,” contends Shelley Hirsch, president of Summit Media, a syndication company that has sold “Mr. Men,” a popular British children’s series, to independent stations seeking to fulfill their educational requirements. (Cable programmers are not subject to the FCC guidelines.)

Network executives, already facing an erosion of their children’s audience to Nickelodeon and other cable outlets, say their efforts to comply with the educational rules were undertaken with the need to keep the shows entertaining enough to be strong in the ratings.

“Each of our shows has an educational objective, but this is a TV program, not a school,” said Lucy Johnson, head of children’s programming for CBS. “It’s still a competition for eyeballs, and we took ‘marquee value’ into consideration in picking our new shows.”

Critics say the commercial yardstick is the wrong standard.

“Broadcasters are providing educational programming to meet their public-service requirements, not to get ratings,” said Peggy Charren, who, as founder of Action for Children’s Television, worked for years to persuade the government to set the educational rules. “Where is it written that they have to put all their children’s shows on Saturday morning?”

Alice Cahn, the director of children’s programming at PBS, is skeptical about counting shows that deliver “pro-social” messages about such matters as the need for children to be honest and to respect people of different cultures.

“My definition of ‘educational’ is a show that has an instructional construct, i.e., what do you want kids to know after they’ve seen it?” Cahn said. “ ‘Brand Spanking New Doug’ [an ABC show about a 12-year-old daydreamer that began on Nickelodeon and will now be one of four educational hours on the network] is a lovely show, but I wouldn’t consider it educational.”

Geraldine Laybourne, the former Nickelodeon president who now oversees ABC’s children’s programming, disagreed, saying that “Doug” and the new “Recess” and “Pepper Ann” provide important role models for kids and adolescents.

“All of our educational shows pay attention to learning, whether it’s cognitive, developmental, social or emotional,” said Laybourne.

ABC’s “Science Court,” from Tom Synder, co-creator of Comedy Central’s “Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist,” features the voice of comedian Paula Poundstone as a judge who “tries” cases of condensation and other scientific principles. “Pepper Ann,” about a feisty adolescent girl, used a school of teenage girls to test the veracity of experiences such as getting your first pimple on the eve of class photos.

ABC’s “101 Dalmatians: The Series” teamed the producers of “Doug” with researchers studying intelligence under educator Howard Gardner at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. With input from the educators, Laybourne said, “101 Dalmatians” teaches kids “about thinking.” In one episode, for example, the dogs evaluate the pros and cons of taking off in Cruella DeVil’s car.

Margaret Loesch, vice chairwoman of Fox Kids Worldwide, also defends the merits of messages about values and emotions along with more curriculum-based fare.

“Teachers have told us that television needs to provide these messages because many children are not getting them at home,” said Loesch, whose network counts as educational both the “pro-social” “Life With Louie” and the geography-themed cartoon “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?”

CBS, which already offers the science series “Beakman’s World,” is going for what executive Johnson describes as more commercial appeal with the addition of “Wheel of Fortune 2000,” in which kids play the familiar puzzle game and answer questions about geography and other subjects, and “The Weird Al Show,” which she said uses a character that kids already like--humorist Al Yankovic--to teach them life lessons.

A more traditional addition for CBS is “The Ghostwriter Mysteries,” which is being produced by the Children’s Television Workshop, best known for making “Sesame Street.” The new episodes, like the previous PBS series, require children to use reading, writing and problem-solving skills to figure out the mystery.

NBC counts two teen sitcoms, “Saved by the Bell” and “Hang Time,” along with “NBA’s Inside Stuff,” a magazine hosted by NBC sportscaster Ahmad Rashad, as educational programming. On Sept. 6 it will add another series to the Saturday lineup, “City Kids,” about the relationship between black and white students at a public high school in New York.

“Our shows are among the few educational series that reach adolescents,” said Robin Schwartz, vice president of Saturday morning programs and prime-time series at NBC. “ ‘City Kids’ teaches teenagers about getting along with people from different backgrounds.”

But of all the broadcast networks, children’s advocates are most skeptical about NBC’s educational intentions.

“NBC is the top-rated network, but they haven’t taken this children’s mandate very seriously,” Charren contended. “I don’t think anybody would look at their lineup and say, ‘Wow, what a breathtaking effort to create diverse programming that educates kids.’ ”

Even Fox’s Loesch said: “Counting ‘Saved by the Bell’ seems like a stretch to me.”

Still, despite her concerns, Charren is hopeful that the rules for educational programming will pay off eventually.

“This is like the first year of the ‘clean-air’ regulations,” Charren theorized. “Probably one-third of the new shows will be nifty, one-third will be terrible, and one-third will be the ones whose educational value is debated. But, hopefully, the public will watch what’s counted, and the shows will get better. If broadcasters can’t figure out how to educate and entertain kids, they ought to be in another business.”