I believe this means that a broadcaster should actively ascertain the needs of the children in its audience, and provide programming that is responsive to those needs. It should provide information to parents about the children's educational and informational shows they air, so that parents may easily find them and encourage their children to watch. The community's role, especially parents, is to be actively involved in their children's television viewing. It is unwise for parents to use television as a babysitter and expect government to be a substitute parent or school teacher. Today, we give parents more tools to be better informed about when educational and informational shows will be aired, to get information about which shows contain educational and informational themes, and to monitor the performance of the stations in their community.
Government also has a key role to play.
The Commission has oversight over all broadcasters as public trustees of the nation's airwaves, and implements the Children's Television Act. It is our job to enumerate a broadcaster's responsibilities under the CTA and ensure compliance at license renewal time in a reasonable fashion. This sensible and flexible framework is what I have been working towards in this proceeding. I have been a strong proponent of the many public information initiatives we adopt in this item. These initiatives will get more information to the public, especially parents, about what individual broadcasters are doing to fulfill their CTA-obligations.