U.S. bill knocks promotional features

Press, 29 June 1988, Page 15

U.S. bill knocks promotional features

By

TOM BRIDGMAN

NZPA Washington A link between television advertising and children's programming that led to some features being extended promotions for toys appears to be on the way out. The United States House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would limit the number of commercials in children’s television programmes and require broadcasters to provide educational and information programmes for children as a condition to licence renewal.

The bill, which must also be passed by the Senate and signed by President Reagan before it becomes law, was greeting by supporters as a significant shift away from the deregulation of broadcasting under the Reagan Administration.

The commercialisation of children’s television

has been a major issue in Washington since 1984 when long-standing restrictions on programming were removed by the overseeing Federal Communications Commission. F.C.C. chairman Mark Fowler said at the time the marketplace would determine what was best for children.

As toy manufacturers became increasingly involved in programming, the result was a splurge of GI J. u, Jem, He-Man, She-Ra — Princess of Power, Barbie and the Rockers, Smurfs and their ilk being featured in animated cartoons that were little more than extended advertisements for spinoff toy products. Apart from "Sesame Street” on the minority public funded (nonadvertising) television channels, educational television for children in the United States virtually ceased to exist.