Christy Glaubke, Children Now
Katie Heintz, University of Southern Maine

Organizational Partners:

Congress and the FCC have required television broadcasters to air three hours of educational programming for children each week as part of their public interest obligations. Since 1999, no national studies have evaluated how well television broadcasters are—or are not—meeting these requirements. Given the FCC’s “laissez-faire” approach to monitoring compliance with the law, it is important for independent organizations to periodically evaluate the quality of children’s educational programming. Therefore, Children Now, together with leading media scholars Dr. Dale Kunkel and Dr. Barbara Wilson, is conducting a comprehensive study to determine how well broadcasters are serving their young audiences.

We will release the study at a Washington D.C. briefing in November 2008 for children’s television executives, policymakers from the FCC and Congress, media scholars and children’s advocates. This convening will provide a forum to discuss the current state of educational programming and the potential need for new policies to ensure a higher standard of educational content in children’s E/I programming. A live online web conference will accompany the briefing to reach the largest possible audience. After the release, we will issue a conference report, continue outreach efforts with federal policymakers and host workshops for media industry leaders.

Contact:

Christy Glaubke
Director of Children & the Media

Children Now
cglaubke@childrennow.org