Kid's Television Group Disbands

Action for Children's Television (ACT), a Cambridge-based group that has promoted educational television for children for more than two decades, has announced that it will disband at the end of this year.

Earlier this month, ACT cofounder Peggy Charren said the group's goals had been fulfilled when Congress passed legislation that requires every television station to provide educational programs for children. The 1990 law also limits commercials during children's programming.

ACT also forced networks to ban ads for certain vitamins during children's programs.

Charren said that ACT will donate $125,000 to the Harvard Graduate School of Education to support work on children's television.

She stressed the importance of Harvard's role in perpetuating ACT's ideals. "People listen when Harvard talks," said Charren.

Charren said that Harvard can use its resources to distribute new technology to a broader group of people.

The ACT co-founder said the group has disbanded not for financial reasons, but because its work is done. "We had enough money to go on, but it's not worth it just to be a sound-bite", she said.

Now, Charren says, she is passing the torch to the communities. "It's up to the communities to talk back to the stations."

Charren, who was a working mother in 1970 when she helped found ACT, says she started the group because of "lousy daycare. I couldn't get out of the house."

ACT based its work on the Communications Act of 1934 which mandates that airwaves should serve the public.

The group stressed that children's interests are different from regular broadcasting interests, according to Charren.

"The law wasn't working for kids," she said.

Charren insists ACT is vehemently opposed to censorship, despite its attacks on television network programming.

"Too many people want to edit texts and ultimately get rid of them," said Charren, referring to Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and groups such as the Moral Majority.