TV's educational efforts get so-so grades

Good morning, parents! Time for a Monday morning pop quiz about your children and their constant companion, the television set. Here goes. 1. Every local TV station airs at least how much educational TV per week? (a) one hour, (b) three hours, (c) seven hours, (d) 168 hours. 2. An example of an educational TV show: (a) "Oprah," (b) "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," (c) "7th Heaven," (d) "NBA Inside Stuff." 3. In a recent national poll, which of the following statements worried parents the most? (a) Television increases my kids' interest in sex. (b) TV increases their materialism. (c) TV decreases the time they spend reading. (d) "Millionaire" reduces the complexity of life to a set of multiple-choice questions. The correct, and perhaps surprising, answers are (b), (d) and (c). If you got the first two wrong, you're normal. The vast majority of parents are clueless on matters of educational TV, at least concerning the commercial TV stations, which are held to a higher standard than their cable or PBS counterparts. That's one of the findings of a new report being released today by the Walter Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The report also confirms the increasing importance of computers and the Internet for American families. Among the other findings: Children ages 2-17 spend an average of nearly 6 1/2 hours per day consuming media. Only 71 minutes of that total is spent with a book or newspaper. Almost half of families with children now have a TV, VCR, video-game machine and a computer at home. Three-fourths of computer-equipped families have online access, yet parents are much more worried about what their kids see on TV than what they find on the Internet. More than half of kids ages 8-16 have a TV in their bedroom. Of these, only 27 percent have a V-chip or other device that blocks out shows their parents might find objectionable. Only 11 percent of kids have Internet access in their bedrooms. Only 50 percent of parents surveyed were aware of the V-chip system, compared with 70 percent three years ago. The report also reiterated what other studies have found about the ratings that are seen at the start of virtually every show on television. When asked to identify the TV rating of a show their children watched, only 16 percent of adults got even one of 10 right. Overall, only 39 percent of parents used the ratings. By contrast, 80 percent of the same parents regularly use the MPAA ratings when selecting movies appropriate for their children. The MPAA ratings were created in 1968 by the Motion Picture Association of America, under the guidance of Jack Valenti, who also authored the TV ratings. "The MPAA ratings are very highly publicized and parents are comfortable with them, whereas the TV ratings aren't promoted, and it's hard to find them," said Emory H. Woodward, one of the co-authors of the Annenberg report. "The two ratings are very similar. They were pioneered by the same person. I can't imagine why, with equal promotion, the TV parental guidelines won't have the same success." The guidelines requiring commercial TV stations to set aside part of their schedules for educational programming were passed by the Federal Communications Commission in 1996. The commission's reform centered on the "three-hour rule," meaning three hours per week of high-quality, violence-free, educational fare. If a station didn't meet that quota, it would have a harder time getting its broadcast license renewed. But what qualified programs to be called "educational"? When would they be scheduled? How heavily should they be promoted? These crucial questions were left up to individual stations to decide. To get the answers, the Annenberg researchers analyzed "educational" shows currently on the air. They added in results from parent-and-child focus groups and from a national poll of 1,235 parents and 416 children conducted this spring by Roper Starch Worldwide. What all this told them about the impact of the three-hour rule, the researchers wrote, "is not encouraging." First, instead of acquiring brain-building shows that teach traditional skills - like "Bill Nye the Science Guy" and "Popular Mechanics for Kids" - stations more often went with nature or sports shows that had softer educational value but higher viewer appeal. The Annenberg researchers, working with an advisory panel of educators, gave high marks to the math and science shows, but programs with vague "pro-social" messages were nearly all rated "minimally" or "moderately" educational. Second, stations scheduled their educational programs in the early morning hours on weekends. Viewership is much higher in the hours after school and in prime time. And many stations did not aggressively promote the shows as educational, just as they did not promote the V-chip or the TV ratings. Each show qualifying under the three-hour rule displays a telltale "E/I"' logo (for "educational/informational") at the beginning of each episode. Yet the Annenberg Center study found only one in three parents could identify the logo. It's unclear how often, if ever, broadcasters air public-service announcements promoting the "E/I" logo, but a report earlier this year found that the four broadcast networks had devoted an average of 90 seconds per week to promoting the V-chip. The result, say Annenberg researchers, is parents can't tell which shows are "educational" and which are merely family-friendly. Seventy percent of parents, for example, guessed that "Millionaire" was an educational program. American Trivia 101 it may be, but the popular ABC game show doesn't count toward a station's three-hour quota. More than 70 percent of parents also thought "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and "7th Heaven" were not only entertaining but actually taught lessons. And, frankly, who's to say they don't - especially when compared to an "educational" show like "Saved by the Bell"? To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com @ART CAPTION:How educational are they? @ART:Graphic @ART CREDIT:The Kansas City Star >>>