Some pander to kids' fascination with fast action and violence in order to bring the biggest available audiences to advertisers. Fewer demonstrate much genuine interest in kids' needs, including the development of social and learning skills. For all of its time on the air, public TV has specialized in the latter. The media scholar George Gerbner provides some historical context. He contrasts the constructive and destructive sides of TV, and names Fred Rogers as a genuine hero for his nourishing work on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and earlier programs for some 40 years.
Programs also differ to meet the needs of different age groups.
PBS is especially strong among preschoolers, whose viewing is often directed by parents, but older kids are attracted to commercial networks, including programs made for adults, though in recent years PBS has been developing new shows for school-age children. Many children's shows on public TV, notably Sesame Street , try to engage the parents with the children, and some are so successful at operating on multiple levels that they have huge, unintended audiences of teenagers and single adults. A Mandate for the Nation, a 1991 book by the late Ernest L. Boyer, school reformer and head of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Boyer proposed a range of educational, nutritional and developmental aid to preschool kids who might otherwise fall behind in school and never catch up. Separate projects were built around Sesame Street in Dallas and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in Toledo.