Children's Educational Television

Welcome to the FCC's children's educational television website. We created this website to inform parents and other members of the public about the obligation of every television broadcast station in this country to provide educational and informational programming for children. This website gives you access to background information about these obligations as well as information about children's educational programs that are aired on TV stations in your area and throughout the country. This website also can help TV stations comply with children's television requirements, particularly the new reporting requirements.

A Little About the Children's Television Act. Congress enacted the Children's Television Act in 1990 to enhance television's potential to teach the nation's children valuable information and skills. The Act requires each television station in the U.S. to serve the educational and informational needs of children through its overall programming, including programming specifically designed to serve these needs (or "core" educational programming). In August 1996, the FCC adopted new rules to strengthen the enforcement of this statutory mandate. These new rules:

• Adopt several public information initiatives designed to give parents greater information about the core educational programs being aired by TV stations (these initiatives are explained in greater detail below).

• Set forth a clear definition of what type of programs qualify as core programs: they generally must have serving the educational and informational needs of children as a significant purpose; be aired between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.; be a regularly scheduled weekly program; and be at least 30 minutes in length.

• Establish a guideline that calls for every TV station to air a least three hours per week of core educational programming.

To find out more about these new rules, or to get a copy of the Commission's August 1996 decision, click here.

For Parents and Others: Getting Information About Children's Programming. A central goal of the FCC's new rules is to provide parents and other members of the public with greater information about educational television programs. This will help parents guide their children's television viewing and also encourage an ongoing dialogue between the public and TV stations about TV station performance under the Children's Television Act. To help accomplish this, the FCC's new rules require commercial television stations to identify core educational programs at the beginning of the program (such as with a verbal announcement or an icon), and to provide information identifying these programs to publishers of program guides and TV listings.

The rules also require commercial TV stations to complete quarterly reports regarding their educational programming and to make these reports available to the public. This website gives you ready access to these reports. Do you want to know what educational programs are available on TV stations in your area, including a description and the target age groups for these programs? Do you want to see a completed Children's Television Programming Report for a particular station? Do you want to know the name of the person you can contact at a television station about its children's programming? If you want this kind of information, you can go to the top-level web page for reports by clicking here.

For TV Stations: Filling Out the Reporting Form. The FCC's rules require stations to complete a Children's Television Programming Report (Form 398) every quarter. This website gives you access to this report, and even allows you to complete it directly through the internet and file it with the FCC electronically. If you want to learn more about filling out the FCC 398 form using your World Wide Web browser, you can go to the top-level web page for electronic filing by clicking here.