Children's Television Programming and the “Free Market Solution”

This study tests the recent FCC ruling that marketplace forces will provide sufficient high quality broadcast programming available in a medium-sized midwestern city during the 1981 through 1983 period. An analysis of more than five thousand programs, involving more than twenty thousand program hours, during six sample points of two weeks each showed that children's programming actually declined, except for public broadcast stations, where it somewhat increased. While commercial broadcasters presented less children's programming, cable channels did not fill in the gap, as some had expected. Some high quality cable programs for children did become available during the 1981–1983 period, but they remained out of financial reach for many poor children. The marketplace, the study argues, does not favor children.