Cyma Zarghami is Executive Vice President and General Manager for Nickelodean.  She’s on the line from New York.  And Alice Cahn joins us from the New York Bureau.  She’s Group President of Television, Film and Video at the Children’s Television Workshop, and former Director of Children’s Programming at PBS.

Our number is 800-989-8255.  That’s 800-989-TALK.

We’ll go first to Iowa City, Iowa.  Nick, welcome to the program.

Nicholas Johnson (NJ):  Thank you, Ray.

RS:  Go ahead Nick.

NJ:  Well, my concern is that it seems to me you are not saying much about the adverse consequence of young children watching anything on television.  Admittedly, some programming may be less harmful than others.  But it’s very difficult for a young child to develop physically, emotionally, intellectually, socially while sitting in front of a television set -- for many kids as much as fifty hours a week.

RS:  Fifty hours seems seems kind of high, Nick.

NJ:  Well, whatever the number of hours.  The point is that a kid is going to do most of their learning for their entire life during the first eight years of that life.  And that includes physical motion, includes intellectual development, it includes interacting with humans rather than just machines.  It includes a lot of things that require that they get up from in front of that television screen and go do something else.

And in terms of the violence studies there’s some considerable evidence that it is the mere act of watching television, not necessarily the violent content of that television, that contributes to the immediate hyperactivity and violence in children -- as well as the increase in what we used to call "juvenile delinquency" when I was a boy, sort of ten years after they’re watching.

Cyma Zarghami (CZ):  You know the average kid in America watches four to five hours of television a week.  And that is based on, you know, some legitimate studies.  And I think that while we as broadcasters cannot control whether kids watch television or not, we can responsibly try and program good stuff for them that helps build their self-esteem, that helps encourage them to interact with their family and their friends, and helps them feel good about being, you know, who they are in the world.  We don’t have any control over whether or not they watch, we’re there to be responsible broadcasters when they are watching.

RS:  I don’t know, four to five hours a week seems kind of low to me, Cyma.  I’m looking here at survey results from CME, Center for Media Education.  And they say three to four hours a day, approximately twenty-eight hours a week, which would be five or six times.
 

CZ:  You might be right Ray, it may be four to five hours that they watch Nickelodean a week, selfishly.

RS:  But I guess Nick is looking for a critique of television and its impact on childhood overall.
Alice Kahn?

Alice Cahn (AC):  Nick, I think you raise an excellent point.  I don’t think anyone in the children’s industry would responsibly want children to sit in front of a television set for multiple hours a day.

I think if you watch, as you obviously have, channels like Nickelodean, and  you’ve sampled from PBS and other broadcast networks, what you’ll see, and I see it frequently on Nick [sic; Nickelodean] as well as on PBS and others.  Interestingly, it goes back to Ray’s earlier point about branding and interstitial material.

Nick has this great spot called "reality" which actually is this very funny thirty-second spot that says, "Gee, you think you like watching life.  Playing with life, and actually doing things, is even more fun."

And I think that’s a message you hear not only on the quality programs on public broadcasting but also on Nick and others.

The issue you raise is really one that faces every family.  How much television do you, as a family, believe is appropriate in your household?  It’s an individual decision that each family is going to make; the same way you’re going to decide on who enters your house as a guest, what books you and your children choose to share, what stories you read, what movies you go to.

The fact is, I think, as Ray pointed out earlier in the broadcast, we’re kind of past the point of television, either should you have it or should you not.  It is a fact.  It is furniture in our homes at this point.  And as adults, as responsible adults, whether in the industry or as parents of young children, it’s our responsibility to make sure that we know what our children are watching on television and talk about it with them.

The best advice I ever got on this is frankly from Peggy Charren, who said, "You have to treat television with TLC.  You have to talk about what your kids are watching.  You have to look at what your children are watching.  And you have to change the channel and turn it off if you don’t like what you see."

RS:  Nick in Iowa City, thanks for your call.  Georgia is next in San Diego.  Hi, Georgia.