Editor: David Tanny
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Why Local TV Stations Don't Serve Our Children (7-17-02)As witness of the golden era of television, from c. 1948 through 1971, I have seen how much the quality of broadcast television has deteriorated over the past 30 years as broadcasters, even those in the San Diego Outland, choose to broadcast programming that is clearly not designed anywhere near the younger TV viewers.Channels 6, 8, 10, 39, 49, 51, and 69 seemed to have forgotten our children in mind when they schedule programming that is full of mature subjects and is for the most part not suitable for children to be watching at those early hours. You think that kids are watching Nickelodeon and Disney Channel? Chances are, with no cable needed, kids as young as four are being exposed to penis jokes at 5:30pm when 69 runs reruns of Drew Carey. Back in the 60's and 70's, the TV stations in the late afternoons ran movies at 3pm with some subjects like westerns and crime that are too violent for our kids to be watching. Today, we have channel 8 running Cops from 3-4pm instead of family-friendly programming such as game shows or educational shows for kids. Back then, 8 had a few local kid show hosts, like Shane in Wonderland in the 60's, and Chester the Jester in the 70's to name two that I remember off hand. Its longtime CBS affilliation used to run Captain Kangaroo (at least on channel 2 in Los Angeles) weekdays until the early 80's, and used to have a six hour block of kids shows that aired at a decent time block from 8am until 2pm. CBS's 2 ran an hour of kids shows on Sunday mornings. Today, kids shows are taking a back seat to sports programming as CBS schedules programming as early as 9am some days, causing some Western CBS affilliates to bump their kids shows to late Saturdays or early Sunday mornings. When CBS has a sports show at 9am, 8 joins it in progress at 9:30 instead of moving the kids show to another time; 8 bumps the 9:30 kids show to Sundays at 7am, a less-viewed time period, whether sports is running Saturday mornings in its regular CBS network feed slot or not. It seems to me that CBS has still forgotten about serving our younger viewers, even though their new parent company, Viacom, has its own Nickelodeon library to help program its shows on CBS where more kids would be exposed to Nick's products. For example, Viacom could program Nickeloden to the younger 2-6 set while programing shows for older kids, say 6-12 or older, and cut back on the Saturday morning sports programming (show college football on its own UPN network instead). Here's how CBS should be programming for kids. Mon-Fri 3-5pm Nickelodeon programming ages 6-18 Sat 7-9am CBS News Sat 9am-2pm Nickelodeon programming ages 6-18 Sun 7am-8am Classic Rugrats HourKGTV, when it was once KOGO and an NBC affilliate, used to have an hour of children's shows from 4 to 5 or 4:30 to 5:30pm, showing the late Johnny Downs to its local Bozo The Clown franchise to reruns of The Flintstones and some classic 60's Japanese cartoons such as Gigantor and Kimba the White Lion. Channel 10 used to have a daily movie or some syndicated talk show before that. Now, there are courtroom dramas and Oprah, as if these would serve our latchkey kids right? Why not put Oprah on at 2pm, move the soaps back from 10am to 2pm (show news at noon), and put cartoons from Disney from 3-5pm. That would be a good counterprogramming to CBS's daily Nick block. At least ABC is programming five hours of TV Disney on Saturday mornings, the most of any major network, but ABC could also bring in three more hours of kids shows on Sunday mornings from 9am-noon. The benefits of programming kids shows seven days a week? Cross promotion. Use the cable networks to plug the broadcast network cartoon shows and make some of the shows on broadcast exclusively (no repurposing on cable!) The Fox Network, which has gone back to a minor broadcast netlet since they cut back on the kids programming (they used to have three hours daily), has seen their ratings for their kids shows from Fox drop to the lowest ratings in their history. Why? Nobody cares about all the no-name shows that kids don't care to remember. Same thing with CBS's kid slates for all of the 90's (save for The Weird Al Show, please). Fox needs to get back into the kids show game by going back to basics and try something not done since the 70's: live kid show adventures. (let's not even talk about the ill produced 90's kids game show Wheel of Fortune Jr.) Back in the 70's, live kid shows were all over the three big networks. H.R. Pufinstuf, Lidsville, Here Come to Double Deckers, Shazan, Isis, Land of the Lost, The Banana Splits, Runaround (a kids game show), nature shows (NBC is bringing them back this fall, powered by Discovery Channel), CBS Children's Theater, The Kids From C.A.P.E.R, Kaptain Kool & The Kongs, The Krofft Supershow, Almost Anything Goes, Ark II, the list goes on and on. Fox could show some prime-time shows aimed at kids with an educational twist, bring back the kid show genre with a nationwide live kids program, and possibly reposition the flop Greg The Bunny into a kids puppet show. The closest thing to a comedy live action kids show is ABC, then WB's prime time fantasy "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch," which (no pun intended) is a live action version of the old Filmation cartoon series from 1970-72 based on the Archie Comic Book series. Speaking of WB, and UPN as well, at least they're serving two hours of kids shows daily. Unfortunately, with the kids syndication business dried up and Fox pulling out of the daily kids block business, four hours of kids shows between the two networks are all that's left to serve the kids. Well, one good news: XEWT 12 (one of only three channels listed in TV Guide, but the other Spanish channels not listed may have them) programs a two hour block of kids shows. I'm not sure if any of these English-translated-into-Spanish kids shows' humor translates well for our Spanish-speaking audience with shows such as Garfield y sus Amigos (Garfield and Friends), Alvin y las Ardillas (Alvin & The Chipmunks), Clarissa lo Explica Todo (Clarissa Explains It All), and, well this one doesn't need translation, Sabrina. Wow. An hour of Melissa Joan Hart speaking en Espanol! How bizarre! And it's a crying shame that the WB hates being called a netlet. The truth is, they're not programming like a network, especially when its parent company, AOL Time Warner, owner of Time Life, Warner Brothers, Hanna-Barbera, MGM, and a vast cartoon and TV show library (like Fox and Viacom do), could be overhauling the WB into a full-service network. Here's how I would program the WB... MON-FRI 7-9am - local programming (news aimed at family viewers) 9am-noon - classic cartoons: Yogi Bear, Tom & Jerry, Bugs Bunny, etc. noon-3pm - game shows (programmed by The Game Show network) 3pm-5pm - Kids WB 5pm-7pm - local programming 7pm-8pm - CNN Nightly News 8pm-10pm - network programming 10pm-11pm - local news 11pm-2am - best of HBO, TBS, other programming from the archives SAT 7am-1pm - Kids WB' 1pm-10pm - syndicted, CNN news, sports programming 10pm-11pm - local news 11pm - 6am - Night Flight programming SUN 7am-10am - local 10am - 7pm - various, syndicated, sports, CNN, etc. 7pm-10pm - network 10pm-11pm - local news 11pm - late - local programmingAs for programming during the other dayparts, it's time for the broadcasters to restrict programming with mature subjects to after 9pm when the kids are put to bed. No Jerry Springer at 5pm! No Friends at 6pm! No cop programming at 3pm! The local stations in the Outland have absolutely no idea on how to program responsibily. They are using the airwaves, instead, to further embarrass themselves with Delta House-level programming so low in age that nobody with a brain over the age of 24 would be caught dead watching this junk! |