Cable’s Class Act
CIC Boosts Its Profile as Education Leader
by Stuart Miller -- Multichannel News, 3/2/2008 7:00:00 PM
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After nearly two decades, the Cable in the Classroom educational foundation continues to work closely with networks and operators to provide cable technology and programming to schools and libraries nationwide.
CIC has had to keep pace with many changes over the years, from how children interact with TV to an increased reliance on broadband. Most significantly, the group has been making a major push to transform itself from content provider to educational leader.
“How kids learn and what they respond to — everything involves video and data and we as an industry are uniquely situated to help with that,” said Jennifer Mooney, group vice president for public relations and government affairs at Bright House Networks.
Within 18 months of its 1989 launch, CIC was providing more than 500 hours of free programming from 20 networks and had doubled its reach to nearly 10 million students.
“Cable in the Classroom was an opportunity to make a difference in the schools with no strings attached,” said CIC senior director of education policy Doug Levin. “For cable it was also a competitive issue.”
CIC was intended to give a public relations boost to cable, adding fuel to its fire was the formation around the same time of entrepreneur Chris Whittle’s for-profit Channel One Network, which provided 12-minute newscasts via satellite.
“It was a threat because it gave a foothold to satellite and the news programmers were concerned that kids raised on Channel One news would go there and to satellite for news programming,” Levin said. “On the regulatory side it would gain support for expanding satellite to the detriment of cable.”
People often thought there was a catch to CIC, said Donna Krache, executive producer of CNN Student News. “They’d look at you sideways and just not believe that it was free.”
Overall, CIC was welcomed with open arms: Peggy Charren, the outspoken president of the advocacy group Action for Children’s Television, said at the time, “I’ve got problems with everything when it comes to children and television. I have no problems with this.”
Today, its member companies range from A&E and WE tv to Bright House and Time Warner Cable. CIC services now reach 130,000 teachers in 90,000 schools.
“More than ever, kids relate to what they see on television,” said Tish Biggs, director of educational advancement at Time Warner Cable for northeast Ohio.
“Books remain the backbone but kids growing up today expect to use video,” said Libby O’Connell, chief historian and senior vice president of corporate outreach for A&E Networks, adding that networks take care to make the programming entertaining and up to state standards.
CIC is placing a growing emphasis on broadband access to provide schools with study guides, clips and even games. “Teachers are very busy and don’t have time to slog through material,” O’Connell said. “This is something that really works and it’s a good, reliable resource.”
Among CIC’s latest initiatives is eLECTIONS, which offers video from C-SPAN, CNN Student News and The History Channel to teach about the election process and lets students run their own campaigns in a multiplatform game. “The depth of resources with something like this is so great you almost don’t need the textbook,” said Krache.
CIC has “done a good job,” said Eric Langhorst, an eighth-grade American history teacher in Liberty, Mo., who downloads clips from iTunes for class. “They’ve gotten more interactive which is very important for these students — it gives them empowerment and makes them feel they’re not just watching TV.”
Levin, who joined CIC from the educational research field nearly four years ago, said CIC has also begun a major outreach to the education community and politicians alike. “We increasingly partner with education and no-profit groups to develop good works that are good for cable and good for education,” he said. “But telling this good news story is a continual task.”
CIC’s “Cable’s Leaders in Learning Awards,” for instance, recognizes innovators in education and brings them together with important Washington figures at an annual gala. In 2003, CIC launched a second magazine, Threshold, which Levin said is “more sophisticated” than its first, which is largely a program guide for teachers. The CIC also conducts national polling with Harris Interactive and teams with groups such as the Partnership for 21st Century Skills to address issues like teacher training.
On the technology front, CIC is testing the on-demand waters in a pilot program with History Channel. CIC will, Levin said, continue searching for new ways “to ensure that parents, educators and students alike understand how to employ the tools at their disposal to be safe, ethical, and savvy consumers and producers of old and new media.”
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