The First Amendment; Peggy Charren

The following program is made possible in part by a grant from the Courier Corporation of Lowell, Massachusetts. (music playing) WGBH radio Boston in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic Communication at Boston University now presents "The First Amendment and A Free People," an examination of civil liberties and the media in the 1970s. I'm Robert Smith sitting in for Bernard Ruben. With me is Dr. Earle Barkus of the School of Public Communication at Boston University. Our guest today is Mrs. Peggy Charren, founder and president of Action for Children's Television. We're concerned with the First Amendment. So let's begin by asking what's the most important First Amendment problem in the area of children's television? [Peggy]: Well when -when I started 1968 the First Amendment was possibly our most significant problem. We, a group of concerned parents and citizens were looking at what children were looking at on television and decided there was no reason why it should be all wall-to-wall monster cartoons. But it took a year of talking

to figure out how to get broadcasters to change that without interfering with the First Amendment. The problem was that we felt that you couldn't go to a broadcaster and say, "Take that off, I don't like it." or "Put this on, because I do." And then the question was, "How could you get change?" if that was so significant a problem. [Robert]: So your solution was to, what, focus on commercials? [Peggy]: Well, we, when we went to the broadcaster and said, "Why are you doing it in the first place?" They said, "It was to get the largest share of the 2-11 year old market," which is how they talked about children for the commercial message. And we figured that commercials weren't protected to the same degree by the First Amendment that the Federal Trade Commission existed to prevent advertising that was misleading and unfair and ACT felt that just about all advertising to children was misleading and unfair because a 5 year old can't really deal with the world of "buy everywhere." And so we focused on that part of the problem in order to call attention to what we were feeding to our kids on the

airwaves. [Robert]: Earl, you've done studies of children's television and the content of it. Do you suppose the audience makes a distinction between First Amendment rights applied to commercials and First Amendment rights applied to programs? [Earl]: I'm not sure the audience makes that distinction. I was, I was thinking when Peggy was talking about, uh, the extent to which commercials, uh, are subject to First Amendment freedoms. And uh, I think that tact that you're taking is very interesting one because most groups, uh, what is it, in Wisconsin, the Council for Better Broadcasting and so forth tend to be censorship groups and be looked at as censorship groups. [Peggy]: ACT, ACT feels the same way about groups that talk to broadcasters and in that tone of voice we feel that, that that kind of freedom is more important than rotten children's television so we've been very sensitive to this issue since we started

and I think it's one of the reasons why the industry pays attention to us. [Robert]: When you approach broadcasters when you're talking with say groups of broadcasters do you begin by saying we're not talking about programming, we're talking about commercials. Do you make that explicit? [Peggy]: Well, we begin sort of the exactly the same way I started just now. We, we point out to broadcasters that since it is commercial practices that are influencing the way they feel about programming that we want to talk to them about their commercial practices directed to children in order to free them to make the kind of programming decisions that we assume they'd make if they were considering the needs of children first. And it's beginning to work. What happened, First of all, we're getting some action on advertising. See part of the problem is that what we're selling to children are products that children for the most part shouldn't have in the first place; highly sugared cereals and expensive toys that break. And so we're getting some rules self-regulatory rules about advertising. We've reduced the amount of advertising on children's programs. It was over one quarter of the hour when we started, and now it's almost down to adult

levels. We've, um, managed to get certain industries to voluntarily stop certain practices on children's advertising. What had happened is the industry got so greedy that it was necessary for somebody to say "stop and look what you're doing". And the only reason that we're having these kinds of successes is because the industry was so vulnerable in this area. [Robert]: Could you say a bit more about the commercials? You mentioned the reduction but, our listeners may not be familiar. [Peggy]: Well, when we started we were selling children, on children's programs and we restrict what we talk about to children's programs, programs that are designed for the 2 to 11 year old, which is a very small spart, part of the broadcast spectrum. But we feel that there's a parent responsibility to deal with the rest of the day and that if children are watching adult programs or news programs that disturbs them that it's up to the parent to turn the set off, or entice the child into a different kind of activity and that no way should programming all day be

appropriate for kids. Now when it comes to particular ads when we started there were a lot of vitamin advertising on children's television and this was for products that said on the back by law keep out of the reach of children because in overdose they caused coma and shock. They were poisonous in overdose, and we felt that it's inappropriate to pitch that kind of product to children. And we made so much noise about it in the press. We get a lot of coverage in the journalism press, print press. Much less, as you would expect, than we get with television press, who although they say they aren't controlled by the networks and stations that they work for, treat this problem with um, with so many kid gloves that I can't believe that there isn't some kind of influence. The press has been very nice to ACT's positions all along and is one of the reasons why we're making change. [Robert]: Could it be because the press has a vested interest in opposing television or criticizing it? [Peggy]: Uh, we've thought of that but I really don't think that's

the reason. I think that, uh, that basically people care about children if they're not being paid not to care about. [Robert] Oh, quite apart from media economics and media politics? [Peggy]: That's right. I think that uh, that the press, uh, may enjoy pointing out to television some of their problems but they're doing it because they really feel they are problems. [Robert]: Earl, you've done some measuring on those commercials on the differences. [Earl]: Right, uh, when you ask about commercials, one of the things I did was to measure the content of Saturday and Sunday morning children's television. And I just finished re-tabulating some, uh, some content data, that is some videotape material from April of '75 and from November of '75. Well obviously between those two periods is quite a change in the, the types of products that are advertised from um, sort of an equal proportion of toys and cereals and snack foods and so forth to November when the, at least about one half of

all commercials are toys and on some stations is even more than that. I think the New York station we measured was something like about 70 percent of their advertising were for toys. But um, just as an example when you compare the April or either period in terms of these, the cereal commercials that Peggy mentioned there, there was on the three networks, um, 71% in April and 74% in November were sugared. [Peggy]: That's the kind of problem that makes ACT feel very itchy. We think if you are going to put cereal in a pretty box and pitch it to kids the least you could do was put the best kind of cereal you're capable of making and what we do in this country is put our worst cereal into the boxes we sell to children. We put highly colored cereals that are loaded with sugar. One new one has,

we understand, 70% sugar. We think it should be called candy and sold at the candy counter. [Robert]: Are there any products that you, have been excluded or show up as a smaller percentage of advertising now as a consequence? Well, perhaps not directly as a consequence of ACT but certainly you're one of the important groups. [Peggy]: Well, we did get the vitamins off children's television [Robert]: Vitamins? [Peggy]: at least and uh the kind of funny problem you have as a citizens' group worrying about demanding change but also worrying about children's "white" rights to be protected from certain wiles and unsafe practices is an issue that happened last, uh, June in Washington D.C. DCA had plans to pitch fireworks on all their children's afternoon programs. There were gonna be 54 fireworks commercials on, for the two weeks before July 4th. Well, in many states fireworks are eliminated entirely from sales because they're so dangerous. And we just thought that children's programming was the most

inappropriate place to push fireworks. See, Washington D.C. they're not, um, they're not illegal. And we found out about it and called the station manager and after a number of conversations, the first, uh, of which he sort of, uh, seemed not to know that it was even going to happen. They pulled the commercials and didn't run them. Now here was a citizens' group calling our station and getting them not to do something that they were planning to do. Advertising Age gave us an editorial that said well it looks like there's a place for citizens' groups like ACT after all because that was certainly a responsible action. The children in the Washington D.C. area were protected because of a citizens' group's action. We feel citizens' group shouldn't have to make that kind of phone call. That it's the role of the Federal Trade Commission and the industry to do their own, uh, watch-dogging. That the, if there were proper rules from the Federal Trade Commission to protect children, you wouldn't have to have what amounts to, uh, sort of a watchdog kind of phone call. [Robert]: You'd prefer to see yourself eventually out of business if these regulatory agencies...uh-huh [Peggy]: Well, certainly out of that business.

That's right. We think that the, it shouldn't be up to a consumers' group to have to protect the public. The government has safeguards built into the system to protect the public. There's the Consumer Product Safety Commission, there's the Food and Drug Administration which has taken many, many years to get to the point of even saying that sugar is a possible cause of cavities in teeth. Now, every dentist has known that as long as I've been going to the dentist and we feel that it's inappropriate for a citizens' group to have to make that kind of phone call to protect the public. [Earl]: Just... [Peggy]: Right? [Earl]: I'm sorry. Yeah, I wanted to interrupt you a second. Just in line with that if you, if you went out of business or organization like you went out of business, in reference to those vitamin commercials there's no reason why they couldn't put them right back on the air, is there? [Peggy]: Exactly. [Earl]: Is there any rule? [Peggy]: No, there is no rule. [Earl]: And the government, they didn't, they didn't... make any rules... [Peggy]: Right...the, right, the Federal Trade Commission did not make a rule and that's why, uh, ACT is participating in some drug hearings, over-the-counter drug hearings that are going to be held in Washington shortly.

[Earl]: I had a note to mention that and I just had I made a note of myself I wondered if that, I'm not try to be the moderator here, Bob, but uh, I wonder if that particular, that the Bellotti petition, uh which is a, pertains to the uh, showing of over-the-counter and proprietary drugs from I think 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. any time when children might be available to, to watch those over-the-counter drug commercials, whether that presents somewhat of a different problem than those programs on Saturday morning say which are intended for the child audience and the advertising is intended for the child audience whereas you know aspirin and NoDoz sleep remedies and all those things that they're advertising during the day time are not intended and designed for the children but they

still watch them. That seems to me that's a slightly different problem. [Robert]: Well could you define children's programs as, you can define it two ways. One is to say "programs designed for children." Another is to say "children or, programs viewed by children, no matter who the intended audience might be." [Earl]: How many children is the question? [Peggy]: ACT takes, ACT really goes by what percentage of the audience is children, which is the way the broadcaster deals with, uh programming for children. [Robert]: So a lot of the detective programs, things of that kind of programs, things of that kind in the early evening are your definition, children's programs. [Peggy]: Uh, no, well as a matter of fact even Walt Disney, would you believe, is not watched by the majority of the audiences not children. It's, it's amazing that you can take a program when millions of children are watching and yet uh, that program is in percentage not a children's program for certain kinds of products. Well for example, look what happened to fireworks. We made that noise about fireworks. We checked first with the NAB, and they said "Oh there are no rules about fireworks so what they're doing is fine."

Which was, uh, which is the way the self-regulatory mechanism deals with that kind of problem. They're a lumbering slow moving body that takes forever to operate and usually if it is going to do anything on a campaign, the campaign's run its course and nobody cares by the time they open their mouths. Now in this particular case I guess, uh, the publicity in the newspapers and the fact that maybe they felt a little ashamed of themselves caused them at some time after this all had blown over to make a rule forbidding the advertising of fireworks on any program, any part of the day. And, that was that's a self-regulatory rule therefore of course it's not a First Amendment problem for anybody. What ACT worries about is that the NAB code is um, only, uh joined by 60 percent of the stations they... [Robert]: ended. and since it's voluntary and it's most likely divided. so its most to violate who aren't members. [Peggy]: And it's voluntary and there's no... that's right. And nothing happens to you if you disobey the code. Except I suppose if you do it often enough you'll get thrown out of the NAB. Now Westinghouse

withdrew from the NAB voluntarily because they said the code wasn't stringent enough and that uh, they didn't feel it did anything and they were showing it by withdrawing for the opposite reason because they are so responsible. Peggy, I wonder if I could lead you to another question you said that so far as ACT is concerned. Advertising doesn't fall inside all of the traditional First Amendment considerations and so you don't have misgivings about trying to influence the content of advertising on children's programs. What about violence? That's clearly a part of programs now. [Peggy] When we when we went to the broadcaster talking about those months the cartoons of course what was behind all the conversations was really the violent level of children's programming when, when they said it's that way because of the advertising and we started focusing on the advertising, what happens in fact is that the broadcaster to defend his position says you can't get rid of the advertising you'll lose, we'll lose all

that nice programming we're putting on and the people lots of people who are concerned about children from pediatricians to teachers to parents say what programming what nice program. So in self-defense a lot of the industry is starting to make that a program in part because so much of the nation's consciousness is now focused on the problem of children's television and on what is on the air. When we started I think the only people looking at it were children and the advertising agency. But so far as you're concerned you would not see yourself pressing broadcasters in the area of say violence or any other program kind of not in the way that you do in commercials we don't we just. I feel that that's an inappropriate way to deal with programming which Which brings us to a concept that the FCC and the three networks have put together as what they think is an appropriate way of dealing with violence and children which is the family hour which is sort of a strange idea that they concocted behind closed doors with no public input.

Considering 8:53 p.m. in the east and west coast and 6 to 8 p.m. as hours when there should be nothing relating to presumably sex and violence on television now the Writers Guild and Tandem productions and a number of groups in Los Angeles have sued the networks and the FCC saying that this is a violation of the First Amendment and mentioning a number of other reasons why they're suing both groups for organizing that concept. One would have thought that act would like an idea like the family hour certainly the words sound nice but in fact we are filing an amicus brief on the side of the Writers Guild because we feel that that's no way to go about making programming change so we could illustrate the program content that might be at stake here one of the participants in the suit is Norman Lear attendance reductions producer of all in the family and

other programs of that genre. Now here's are you are you concerned with say assuring access on the part of children through programs that may have that kind of content. Well it isn't so much assuring access for children it's assuring access for everybody. Once you take two hours of broadcast time and say Thou shalt not and don't even say what Thou shalt not do which makes it almost worse because then anybody can decide that shot not do almost anything. There are no guidelines for this family are you just disposed to use your own judgment. You know you limit the airwaves to the kinds of safe programming that somebody up there on the 90th floor decides they should be seeing and we don't think that's reasonable we think is that everybody families and certainly families include the whole broadcast audience should have access to all kinds of ideas and to all kinds of concepts. And naturally we're not advocating tearing people up into little bits and throwing them down the stairs. But the

family out doesn't take care of that anyway. The concept doesn't begin to solve the problem it was set up to handle and excuse me but the family hour as I understand the sequence of events that led up to it. The FCC was under some pressure to do something about violence in the early evening when children constitute a substantial part of the audience. And so the chairman of the FCC together with the presidents of the three networks cooked up this as a voluntary solution which avoided making by the Commission now would you have preferred federal. You know we think there should have been any room miking in this kind of an area. We think that for example if you take children and what children see you have three to six in the afternoon as children's programming. It's the most racist sexist sadistic kind of programming you could dream up as Professor Bach is discovered in part with with his study of afternoon programming in independent and UHF stations around the country in 10 markets. And what is the family are doing for that. The family has the kind of

concept which tells Norman Lear that he can't do all in the family at all. 8 o'clock at night yes put it on at 9 but it's being syndicated at 3 park in the afternoon of 5 o'clock in many markets you know that's that is what we can the American public in fact act gave or the FCC The Emperor's New Clothes award we suddenly accept here with awards and before Tuesday we came the Emperor's New Clothes award for hoodwinking the American public into thinking they were being protected. This was a way for getting out from under the congressional concern about violence so you'd be willing to take the risk that there might be more violence in the early evening. That was never really terribly violent anyway. That at that time it's full of news. The reason the networks were concerned is they were hoping to keep any kind of action program so if you wake up stations. But we think there is there's better ways to go about making change we think that you really have to consciousness raise the industry to the concerns of the American public so they make the decisions themselves. And so there isn't some kind of concept

that in the wrong hands can keep any. Anything off the airwaves you could say that almost anything isn't appropriate for children certainly when it comes to sex acts feels a little sex education would help children on television. So you'd stay out of the area of defining what ought to be appropriate program comments from what you know what is in that afternoon block picking mention that you've been doing work on it right. The afternoon block we're talking about is primarily the 3 to 6 p.m. period for the independent UHF stations across the country and I studied those stations. What I found primarily was that the programming is old. It's almost I think about two thirds of it is programs that were originally designed for primetime adult viewing. Now these are old ones like I Love Lucy and the Hogans Heroes and so were those were never designed as children's programs.

And then the other component is the advertising we talk about or go which is directed to children in these non children programs and in a sense but they are children's programs in a sense of the proportion of the audience as well as watching at that time because an awful lot of children who tune into the UHF afternoon after school hours because that's about all there is for them to watch. You know networks are doing very little occasional afterschool special. But the networks do very little of children's program during the week because you probably know when you're talking about the family hour. I was thinking about thinking back to the First Amendment and one television critic who said that the whole broadcasting industry has built up a tremendous profit making organization under the protection of the First

Amendment. So it seems to me the First Amendment not only protects citizens but it also protects the industry and and the profits that they make. It seems to me this has to be some solution to this problem so that you don't have to make a rule. Through the FCC or any other rule which tells a person in a broadcast organization that you that you shouldn't abuse children through this showing of obviously violent things and that and using deceptive advertising and so forth they should know not to do that by themselves. And this is goes back in just one more sentence to the whole idea of why can't the broadcaster be responsible enough to realize that under the protection of the First Amendment he he could exercise this responsibility. I gather Peggy would like to enhance his freedom to which might mean an increase in

responsibility that comes with it. You know I think they've got rather make their two points One is that one thing that's starting to happen when it comes to violence on television is that the advertiser is beginning to make noise about it. And when advertisers talk. Broadcasters listen. Unlike the way they respond to most of the public the Archon open from General Foods and one of the directors of foot cone Belding which is an advertising agency have both made very long speeches about the fact that they're beginning to sink that heavily violent programs and not the proper place to sell their products because of the attitude of the public to of the program even while they're watching it. That that it doesn't give you that nice warm friendly feeling you should have for a product that will make you rush out and buy it. Now if that kind of thing happens you probably will see less violence on the air. The other point I want to make is that act has

joined a petition of the National Citizens Committee for broadcasting to the FCC to ask that every station be forced to have one hour a week of public service programming which seems little enough to ask for in return for a license to use the public airwaves. The broadcaster is supposed to serve the public interest in return for the use of the public airwaves. In the old days of television there was a lot of public service programming there were lots of programs like 60 Minutes. Now there are almost none and this is a petition that many public interest and educational groups around the country have joined with and we certainly hope that the FCC will see fit to make that rule. It's little enough to ask it you know in the process of asking the commission to do it. Peggy I'm reminded of something Earl said to me later and earlier and mentioned earlier on this program. And that is his concern that as we progress it looks as though the way to influence broadcasters is not to depend on the broadcaster to do it within your

community but either to organize as a pressure group such as a C.T. or through governmental regulation is that the most appropriate way to have to bring about a responsive system or I'm not sure it's the most appropriate but it's certainly the most popular today. Seems like this is the way things are getting done. I think there are a lot of implications to that that we probably can't go into now. You have to make a lot of noise and get a lot of media coverage before certain institutions. Will do anything. I think it's because television has become the way people get their information. And the most believable of media for me for so many people in America is that it's really the only way to make noise anymore. And radio I shouldn't say just television when I'm talking on the radio. In the spring issue of the ACTU newsletter There's an article that refers to the Federal Trade Commission as the paper tiger I gather you would like to strengthen that kind of

agency. We always felt that the that the agency should at least be full of good appointments. When we started there were some that there was a variety of people as commissioners who seemed to have a variety of points of view there was Ken Cox who was a brilliant lawyer and there was Nick Johnson who was a consumer advocate and as the Republican stayed in power for so long the Commission got a very one sided. Way of behaving that act isn't too delighted when our time is up today but I'm sure some broadcasters will be surprised to learn that a c t defines itself as a defender of the First Amendment and is not only a threat to their interests but is in some interest to some extent interested in their well-being. Our time is up I'm Robert Smith sitting in for Bernard Reuben. With me today was Dr. Earle Barkus of the school of public communication at Western University. Our guest was Mrs. Peggy Shannon founder and president of Action for Children's Television. Thank you for joining us on the

First Amendment and a free people. WGBH radio Boston in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic communication at Boston University has presented the First Amendment and the free people. An examination of the media and civil liberties in the 1970s. This program was recorded in the studios of WGBH Boston and was made possible in part by a grant from the Courier Corporation of Lowell Massachusetts.