FCC Could Move To Ease Station Kids Rules

To stay in the good graces of the FCC, broadcasters for the past two decades have dutifully aired three hours each week of educational children’s programming — shows like The Inspectors, Jack Hanna’s Wild Countdown and The Voyager with Josh Garcia — and adhered to other kids’ programming and advertising rules.

But they may get some relief from those obligations.

The major networks, their affiliates and the National Association of Broadcasters have been urging the agency to lighten the kidvid load since last summer in the proceeding that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai launched to eliminate outdated regulation.

And in a detailed Jan. 26 blog posting, Republican Commissioner Michael O’Rielly showed that he has been listening. “It is high time the commission consider whether the Kid Vid rules are still necessary,” he wrote.

In the wake of the blog blast, O’Rielly’s GOP colleagues — Pai and Brendan Carr — whose votes are critical to the launch of a review — were holding their cards close to the vest, with Carr declining comment and a spokeswoman for Pai saying he is considering the recommendations.

But a broadcast industry source close to the issue said he believed that O’Rielly’s blog had Pai’s blessing. “This is sending up the trial balloon for what could lead to a proceeding to review the FCC’s rules,” he says.

Jack Goodman, a Washington communications attorney, says the FCC can’t eliminate its kidvid rules altogether because the basic obligation is statutory.

But, he says, the agency could relax its three-hour processing guidelines, in addition to its policy restricting the ability of broadcasters to preempt children’s programming.

In addition, Goodman says the FCC could eliminate the requirement that broadcasters provide up to three hours of children’s programming on each of their multicast channels.

Goodman also says the FCC could dramatically reduce the industry’s kidvid paperwork burdens and eliminate the requirement that broadcasters publicize the location of quarterly filings.

In addition, Goodman says the FCC should be required to justify the children’s TV restrictions on First Amendment grounds. “After 20 years, the FCC needs to show that the rules actually have resulted in better educated children,” Goodman said.

Any effort to weaken the regs would likely be opposed by some Democrats and liberal watchdog groups.

They would be led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) a long-time champion of the rules. “Families around our country, particularly in low-income areas, rely on free, over-the-air children’s programming as a way to educate their children,” he said in response to the O’Rielly post.

“I have serious concerns about the changes contemplated by Commissioner O’Rielly and how they would negatively impact kids coast-to-coast.”

The Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood and the Center for Digital Democracy also opposed the industry’s calls for deregulation in FCC filings.

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