Kidvid NPRM Aimed at Bipartisan Appeal Yet Slammed by Blumenthal

Commissioner Mike O’Rielly’s office told us the item contains concessions to kidvid boosters such as Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, but it’s not clear how Markey or sole FCC Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel will respond. Industry officials suggested she and Markey may take a similar tack on the issue. Markey’s office has said only that he’s reviewing the item. Rosenworcel’s office didn’t comment.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is opposing the NPRM. “This proposal would undermine and weaken ‘Kid Vid’ rules, leaving low income families with fewer opportunities to provide their kids with important educational programming,” he said in a statement. Markey invoked kidvid rules during a confirmation hearing last week for FCC nominee Geoffrey Starks (see 1806200055).

Blumenthal said the rules are “vital to protecting children from predatory advertising,” but the NPRM says it doesn’t contemplate changes to kidvid advertising strictures. O’Rielly tweeted the same Tuesday. “Item DOES NOT alter advertising restrictions,” O’Rielly said, conceding “update is needed.”

Viacom, NCTA and MPAA have all urged the FCC to relax ad restrictions to reflect competition from internet-based companies that lack kidvid restrictions. Leaving the issue out of the draft NPRM is seen as an overture to Markey and Rosenworcel, a content industry official said. O’Rielly’s office said the NPRM’s focus on making kidvid more flexible while still requiring broadcast children’s content is the result of a conversation with Markey.

Noncommercial educational stations are unlikely to have objections to the kidvid NPRM, said attorneys. The proposal includes the removal of the E/I bug, as requested by PBS and America's Public Television Stations, and other aspects of the kidvid rules, such as reporting requirements, that don’t apply to NCE stations, said NCE attorney Todd Gray of Gray Miller. Most NCEs already offer far more children’s content than kidvid requires, though some of the schedule and multicast flexibility suggested in the NPRM would be welcomed by public stations, said one lawyer.

A proposal in the NPRM to make it more viable for broadcasters to fulfill kidvid requirements by sponsoring content on other stations is interesting to NCE stations, but it’s unclear if broadcasters will take advantage of it, an NCE lawyer said. The NPRM proposes changing a little-used option in current rules that allows such sponsorships but requires broadcasters using it to have their license renewal application considered by the full FCC. The option’s rarely used because of the uncertainty it would inject into the renewal process, said Garvey Schubert's Lawrence Miller. The NPRM would seek comment on allowing such renewals to be approved at the bureau level. That’s unlikely to make the provision more commonly used if rules are made more flexible to the extent suggested, an NCE lawyer said, since it would then be easier for broadcasters to air their own kidvid content. No public station is going to object to a chance to have more sponsors, Gray said.

The FCC should gather more data on some of the proposals in the NPRM, said Common Sense Policy Counsel Ariel Fox Johnson. Though the item suggests more flexibility about airtimes should be built into kidvid because of the prevalence of time-shifted viewing, the agency doesn’t know the degree to which children view time-shifted content, Fox Johnson said. The NPRM also tentatively concludes the E/I (educational and informational) symbol requirement should be eliminated for noncommercial stations, but it’s not established how reliant parents are on that symbol. Children’s TV advocates are concerned shifting the burden to multicast channels may reduce the number of children reached, as could schedule flexibility if it allows broadcasters to load all their kidvid content into one weekend, or air it at times children aren’t watching, she said. Fox Johnson said advocates agree some of kidvid reporting requirements could be relaxed. Offering children’s content and broadcaster convenience aren’t “a zero-sum game, ” she said.

O’Rielly’s office is gathering data from Nielsen on kidvid viewing habits, an aide said. There is also a lack of data on how effective the currently required kidvid content is at educating children, broadcast attorney Jack Goodman said. “I sincerely doubt that programs children don’t watch do much for their education.”

Commercial broadcasters are pleased with the direction of the NPRM, said Goodman and Miller. NAB seems to have had a lot of input into the proposal, a content industry official said. Reductions in the reporting requirements would be helpful to commercial stations, but the most important piece of the proposal is the flexibility suggested for pre-empting kid’s content, Miller said. The current rules are a large burden to broadcasters, he said.