Martin: Cable Part of Junk-Food Problem

FCC Chairman: Cable Airs More Ads Aimed at Kids

By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 5/14/2007 4:57:00 PM

Any crackdown on TV junk-food ads aimed at children would need to include cable networks because pay TV channels devote more time to those ads than children’s shows aired by local TV stations, Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin said in a recent letter to a House subcommittee chairman.

“The problem appears to be at least if not more pervasive on cable television. Thus, any proposed solution targeted toward those who use the public airwaves and that does not include cable television would be inappropriate and ineffective,” Martin said in letter to Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.

Martin’s letter, dated May 11, was released Monday by Markey’s office. Joining Republican Martin on the letter was Deborah Taylor Tate, a Republican FCC member.

Martin and Tate stressed the need to include cable based on a March study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which found that three leading cable networks for children -- ABC Family, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon -- devoted 32% of their advertising time to “food ads,” compared with 13% for the four major networks, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

“The ad-supported children’s cable networks air 8.8 food ads per hour, considerably above the 4.8 food ads per hour on the top four broadcast networks,” Martin's and Tate’s letter explained.

Although their letter insisted that the cable networks devoted more time to junk-food ads than local TV stations, the letter didn’t say whether the Kaiser study determined that more children were watching the cable networks than the local TV affiliates.

Last year, Martin and Tate got together with Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) to form the Task Force on Media and Childhood Obesity, hoping to come up with ways to reverse children who eat too much snack food. In the letter to Markey, the two FCC members called childhood obesity “a national epidemic.” The task force is to meet two more times before presenting a report, they said.

“Given Kaiser’s finding related to the fact that the problem is more pervasive on cable than on broadcast, this conclusion cannot be limited to those who use the `public airwaves,'” Martin and Tate said.