User talk:Tony.M.S.O/sandbox

Children's Television Act
The Children's Television Act was suppose to protect children against the “dangers” of television. Instead, it created more problems. After the act was passed, even though there was more programming geared towards kids, TV actually became less educational than it had been before. The reason educational television actually degraded with the enactment of the Children's Television Act is because congress provided little direction towards the quality of the programming, it only said that programming had to be “specifically designed to serve the educational and informational needs of children”. According to a report on unintended consequences of the children Television Act by Andy Levinsky, a 1998 Annenberg report stated that; the number of network shows labeled “highly educational” dropped form 43 percent to 29 percent, since the enactment of the act. As another result of the Children's Television Act, many of the local broadcasting stations dropped their locally produced “educational” shows and bought blocks of already produced kids' shows from the bigger networks. This was largely due to the fact that the rules stated that stations only had to meet the requirement of a minimum of three hours a week of educational programming. Many of the local stations thought in terms of profits and axed their own shows, which were more educational than the syndicated ones, in order to save money and still meet the minimum requirements for re-licensing. In the 1996 update of the act, the FCC stated that “the programming must have a significant purpose. Education need not be the only one”, this goes against the whole reason the act was put forth in the first place, to solely provide educational shows to children, now education isn't the only criteria for a TV show.