From:      <mholcom1@ic3.ithaca.edu>
To:        A16.A16(kidstv)
Date:      10/16/95 6:41pm
Subject:   children and tv

Dear members of the FCC,

     According to Newton Minnow and Craig Lamay, authors of
Abandoned  in the Wasteland, by the time most people reach the
age of eighteen, they  have spent more time in front of a
television than in the classroom.  The  difference is far greater
in contrast to time spent talking to their  parents, teachers and
friends.  It is evident tht providing a better  television
environment for our children should be a great priority to the 
Federal Communications Committee.
     The deterioration of the family that has occured in the
United  States has contributed to the need for quality
programming for children.   At one time in America watching
television was a family event in which  the entire family watched
together.  David Westin, ABC network president,  agrees stating
that in the past most families owned one television and so 
majority ruled what was seen.  He continues saying today
households own  two or three television sets and children are
going in one room and  adults into another to watch television. 
Parents are failing to monitor  what their children view and so,
children are being exposed to numerous  acts of violence and sex. 
With this breakdown of the familiy, the  government should take
some initiative and do something to improve the  situation.
     Daniel Anderson, a professor of psychology at the University
of  Massachusetts, claims the "For children, television is a
window to the  world.  Parents should control, limit, regulate
television as much as  they control, limit and regulate other
things the child does."  Parental  control of what a child
watches on television is ideal, yet overly  optimistic.  Not only
do parents no longer sit and watch television with  their kids,
but often times there is only one parent present.  The makeup  of
families has changed over the years.  Divorce is more prominent
in  today's society and more and more children are being born out
of  wedlock.  Even if a single parents wanted to monitor what his
or her  child watched, it would be very unlikely that the parent
would have the  time; therefore, it is vital that networks
increase the amount of quality  television for children aired. 
Programmers must begin to realize that we  can't change the
structure of families, but we can change the structure  of
television.
     "It just has to do with conventional wisdom that unless
somebody  makes us, it isn't in our economic interest to do
educational programming  for kids," notes David Britt, president
of the Children's Television  Workshop.  Networks need to be
forced into producing more child oriented  programming.  The FCC
should place regulations on networks that they must  air a
certain amount of educational and informational television for 
children.  There have been efforts to alter the Children's
Television Act  of 1990 that would provide this increase in
children's programming.  One  proposal would have made it
necessary for networks to air at least three  hours of children's
television a week.  Three hours a week, however, is a  pathetic
attempt to tranform the structure of television for kids.  It 
should be three hours of programming a day.  The only way kids
are going  to start watching better programming is if they are
bombarded with  numerous options.
     A study conducted by Aletha Huston and John Wright,
co-directors  of the University of Kansas Research on the
Influences of Television,  found that in low income areas of
Kansas City, children who watched  Sesame Street regularly
performed significantly better on standard math  and verbal tests
than children who watched adult television and  cartooms.  There
have been numerous other studies with similar results.   It is so
obvious that increasing the amount of children's telvision  would
only be benenficial, so why isn't someone doing something about
it?

                                                    Sincerely,
                                                    Kate Holcomb
                                              

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