Supplement: Children and Television: A Conference Summary

In June 1996, the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, in cooperation with the Children's Television Workshop, hosted its first annual Conference on Children and Television. The conference was organized around four discussions: (1) the elements that characterize quality children's television; (2) the problems that producers confront in creating, producing, and selling quality programming; (3) the dilemmas confronting advertisers; and (4) the dilemmas confronting buyers and distributors. Conference participants included representatives from public and commercial broadcast and cable television industries, producers of children's programming, media buyers from advertising agencies, and advocates and researchers of children's television. Overall, the participants agreed that under the right conditions it is possible to create high-quality, educational programming that children will watch. (The Federal Communications Commission's three-hour rule was seen as a positive step toward achieving that goal.) However, most also recognized the hurdles educational programs must clear to gain an audience and be seen as successful in the eyes of advertisers and broadcasters.