THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 7, 1994 TAG: 9407070018
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
Reed Hundt, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, says television is the ``battleground'' for our children's hearts and minds. So the FCC - the industry's regulatory parent - wants to force television stations to offer more educational programs for kids.
The FCC can force stations to show anything it wants. But if it can make kids watch it - a very different thing - then Hundt should apply for sainthood.
The only explanation must be that Reed Hundt lives in a neighborhood not yet wired for cable. It is hard to conceive that this idea could have come from a man who has access to the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel, the Family Channel, Arts and Entertainment and all the other educational choices now available via cable.
It's unlikely that parents and kids in search of family-oriented programming would be unable to find it almost any hour of any day. And the programming available on cable is often instructional, even if not under the boring categorization of ``educational.''
``TV's power of persuasion brings with it a duty to teach,'' declares Hundt. But it doesn't have to be in a limited format and at certain times of the day. Public broadcasting was created by Congress partly to provide educational programming to children and teenagers. And The Children's Television Act of 1990 already limits the time for commercials in television programs for kids.
In the age of cable and the information superhighway, it is mind boggling that proposals for this kind of Stone Age regulatory nonsense are still taken seriously. Force television stations to run an hour of ``educational`` television (however that is defined) every day and watch the ratings of MTV soar during the same time slot. So relax, Reed. And get cable. by CNB