Copps: Push for Kids Compromise

COPPS: PUSH FOR KIDS COMPROMISE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
At a Children Now conference in Washington, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps called for a push the get the Commission to adopt the compromise kids DTV rules now before it. The FCC passed kids DTV rules in 2004. They extend broadcast and cable kids ad limits to digital TV and set restrictions on Web links in kids shows, both in analog and digital. But a court fight held up the rules until both sides struck a deal that Commissioner Copps says is now stuck at the FCC. Commissioner Copps had some harsh words for the media. After the caveat that TV's power can be used for great and good, it is all too often commercial-laden, sex and violence drive "kiddie litter." He said that kids are too often seen as commodities to be trafficked in, and said that as the lines between ad and entertainment blur, the more pernicious their effect can be. He also pitched the crowd, heavy with kids TV activists, to pressure the FCC to address the issue of interactive links in TV shows and to set some guidelines on that passage from the protected world of broadcast to a 'net bazaar bereft of any rules. And last, he identified media concentration as the root of at least some of the potential evil, saying the FCC should be pushed into holding a hearing specifically on the effects of concentration on kids programming as part of its ownership review.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6355051?display=Breaking+News