From Public Interest To Corporate Compliance: The Erosion Of “KidVid”

LocalProximity
Written By Tim Hanlon

When Congress passed the Children’s Television Act in initial form in 1990, it had a noble goal: to protect children from a diet of pure cartoon commercialism and ensure that broadcasters, as trustees of the public airwaves, offered meaningful educational programming for young audiences. The law’s intent was clear — cap the number of minutes broadcasters could devote to advertising during kids’ shows, and compel stations to air a modest but consistent amount of educational and informational programming each week.

In 1996, the FCC codified this into the rule that has governed “KidVid” obligations ever since: each full-power television station must air at least three hours per week of “core” educational/informational content. To qualify, a show has to be at least 30 minutes long, regularly scheduled, and clearly identified with an on-screen “E/I” bug familiar to industry watchers. Stations also file reports with the FCC to demonstrate compliance, reviewed at license renewal time.

At face value, this sounded like a straightforward public-interest bargain: in exchange for free scarce spectrum, broadcasters would commit to a sliver of their schedule for children’s educational needs. But as with many regulatory mandates, the reality has played out in ways Congress probably never envisioned.

Saturday Mornings: From Cartoons to Compliance

For decades, network-controlled Saturday mornings were synonymous with kids’ TV. Generations grew up on Looney Tunes cartoons, Scooby-Doo, and toy-driven franchises that doubled as advertising for breakfast cereal and plastic action figures. By the 1980s, critics said children’s television had been hijacked by marketers, setting the stage for regulatory action.

But the advent of the 1990 Children’s Television Act coincided with a much bigger structural shift: the migration of children’s programming to cable. Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Disney Channel siphoned young audiences away from the broadcast dial. Networks quickly realized that producing their own children’s shows was a losing business proposition.

Instead, they turned to outsourcing. By the 2000s, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and The CW had all abandoned in-house kids’ programming and instead struck deals with syndicators who specialized in producing FCC-compliant E/I “blocks.” The most important of these players was Litton Entertainment, which by the early 2010s had secured contracts with nearly every major broadcast network.

The Rise of Hearst Media Production Group

Litton, founded in 1989, perfected the model of E/I as a service. Rather than develop cartoons or narrative children’s shows, Litton focused on formulaic but safe “edutainment” — wildlife programs, travelogues, light STEM explorations, and lifestyle segments with positive messaging. The shows could be cheaply produced, easily packaged for syndication, and backed by corporate sponsors whose products fit neatly into the programming.

For the networks, Litton solved an expensive problem: they could hand their weekend morning hours to a turnkey provider, meet FCC obligations, and wash their hands of producing children’s programming. For stations, compliance became nearly automatic: air the block provided by the network feed, tick the box, and move on.

In 2017, Hearst Television acquired Litton, rebranding it in 2021 as Hearst Media Production Group (HMPG). Today, HMPG produces almost every single network’s children’s E/I block — “Weekend Adventure” on ABC, “CBS WKND,” “The More You Know” on NBC, and “One Magnificent Morning” on The CW. Effectively, one company controls the bulk of educational programming on broadcast television.

The Spirit vs. the Letter of the Law

On paper, the 3-hour E/I requirement still exists, and broadcasters dutifully report compliance. But the spirit of the rule — that local broadcasters should actively serve children’s educational needs as part of their public-interest mandate — has been hollowed out.

Several issues are obvious:

  • Formula over innovation: The same style of nature docs, travel features, and STEM-lite programming repeats across every network, week after week. Little resembles the kind of ambitious, creative children’s shows that once defined the medium.

  • Weekend morning exile: Almost all of this programming airs in Saturday or Sunday early morning “dead zones” when few kids are watching. The content technically meets the rules but rarely reaches its intended audience.

  • Multicast dumping: Since the digital transition, stations are now allowed to shift KidVid programming onto secondary subchannels/diginets, burying it even deeper.

  • Monopoly supply chain: HMPG’s dominance has left little room for diverse ideas, producers, or perspectives. Broadcasters don’t invest locally or creatively — they simply carry whatever Hearst produces for the affiliated network.

Do the Rules Still Work?

The original regulatory intent — to counteract over-commercialization and guarantee access to meaningful educational TV — feels increasingly disconnected from the way children consume media today. Kids are not glued to Saturday morning broadcast schedules anymore; they’re on TikTok, YouTube, Netflix, or Disney+. Meanwhile, the rules have effectively devolved into an industry paperwork exercise, made easier by a single corporate syndicator.

While some argue the rules protect families without broadband or streaming access, the sameness of the programming and its scheduling in little-watched time slots make their value dubious. The FCC still polices the technicalities, but the broader mission has been lost..

The Bottom Line

KidVid rules were born of good intentions — to ensure children weren’t shortchanged by profit-driven commercial broadcasters. But three decades later, they’ve morphed into an outsourced compliance exercise dominated by a single producer. Outsourcing to Hearst may be efficient, but efficiency is not the same as public service.

The uncomfortable truth is that the FCC’s children’s television rules have become less about children and more about maintaining a regulatory relic. In today’s fragmented, digital/streaming-first environment, the real question is not whether local broadcasters are checking the box — it’s whether the box itself still matters.

Tim Hanlon

Tim Hanlon is the Founder & CEO of the Chicago-based Vertere Group, LLC – a boutique strategic consulting and advisory firm focused on helping today’s most forward-leaning media companies, brands, entrepreneurs, and investors benefit from rapidly changing technological advances in marketing, media and consumer communications.

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