Action for Children's Television

For close to 25 years, Action for Children's Television (ACT) was among the most prominent media reformers in the United States. Formed by a group of concerned Massachusetts mothers in 1968, ACT sought to protect children from the commercialism of television programming, especially within shows aimed at young viewers. ACT's emphasis on children, and its acceptance of the structure and economics of the television industry, contributed to its success in gaining the ear of broadcasters and their federal regulators.

The first activist group to concentrate on children's television, ACT had two overarching, intertwined goals: (1) to impress on broadcasters and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that children constituted a unique audience, more naïve and impressionable than adult viewers, who required special administrative protections; and (2) to eliminate advertising and promotion from children's television. To realize these aims, ACT tried to reform broadcasting practices, researched and published reports on television's impact on children, and staged public events to draw attention to its cause.

In the early 1970s, ACT members met with the FCC and successfully encouraged the Commission to examine rules regarding children's television and to develop a permanent children's unit as part of the agency's infrastructure. In addition, ACT filed a petition with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ban commercials for sugar-based foods (cereals, candy) and toys on television. The FTC agreed to investigate ACT's petition, putting aside its policy of working on a case-by-case basis. Responding to complaints of the sugar lobby, Congress passed a law in 1980 prohibiting the FTC from creating industry-wide rules regarding unfair advertising; this law, in other words, rendered the ACT petition futile. However, despite its logistical defeat, the ACT campaign garnered substantial public interest, drawing attention to ACT's concerns over the health hazards of manipulative television advertising and prompting the transformation of the conventions of cereal commercials to be more sensitive to their impact on young audiences. ACT's concern over advertising and promotion on children's television extended to the content of programming as well. For example, in 1992, ACT filed a petition with the FCC protesting Yo! It's the Chester Cheetah Show, a program designed by Frito Lay whose central character was an established animated spokesperson for Frito Lay products.

In addition to its formal petitions, ACT created resources for itself and for like-minded individuals and organizations. In its first 15 years, ACT commissioned 15 studies on children's programming and commercials. Another source of publicity for the concerns of the group were events organized by ACT. For example, ACT staged a rally in which it gave away balloons to children and pens and envelopes to their parents with advice on how to write to the FCC to protest inappropriate commercials or programs for children.

ACT's impact began to diminish in the 1980s, when advocates of deregulation began to control federal administrative agencies, fostering a climate hostile to the interventions that ACT sought to make. Its legacy, however, can be found in current media reformers who see dangers in television's commercialism and in broadcasters' and the viewers' cautious attitudes toward young viewers.

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