Children and Television

1. What is the time per day that a TV is on in an average U.S. home?

ANSWER: a. 7 hours, 40 minutes. Compiled by TV-Turnoff Network for New York Times Magazine, February, 16 2003.

2. What percentage of children, ages six to seventeen, have TV's in their bedrooms?

ANSWER: c. 53 percent. Survey by Kaiser Family Foundation, 1999 as reported in Ellen Edwards, "Plugged-In Generation: More Than Ever, Kids Are at Home With Media." The Washington Post, November 18, 1999.

3. What percentage of kids say the TV is usually on during meals?

ANSWER: c. 58 percent. Survey by Kaiser Family Foundation, 1999 as reported in Ellen Edwards, "Plugged-In Generation: More Than Ever, Kids Are at Home With Media." The Washington Post, November 18, 1999.

4. How much TV does the average child watch each week?

ANSWER: b. 28 hours. That averages four hours a day every day all year long. Survey by Kaiser Family Foundation, 1999 as reported in Ellen Edwards, "Plugged-In Generation: More Than Ever, Kids Are at Home With Media." The Washington Post, November 18, 1999.

5.How much TV does the average American 1-year-old watch each week?

ANSWER: d. 6 hours. Compiled by TV-Turnoff Network for New York Times Magazine, February, 16 2003.

6.How many hours per year does the average American youth spend watching TV?

ANSWER: d. 1,023 hours. Compiled by TV-Turnoff Network for New York Times Magazine, February, 16 2003.

7.How many hours per year does the average American youth spend in school?

ANSWER: d. 900 hours. Compiled by TV-Turnoff Network for New York Times Magazine, February, 16 2003.

8. How many TV commercials does the average child see in a year?

ANSWER: a. 20,000. This is out of more than 300,000 broadcast each year. Report on "Children's Television," National Organization for Women Foundation, 2000. Mary Jane Kuntz and Joseph Weber, "The New Hucksterism," Business Week 1July 1996.

9. What percentage of Saturday morning TV ads is for sugary cereals, candy bars, salty canned foods, fatty foods and other junk food?

ANSWER: a. 90 Percent. Campaign for Kids' TV, Center for Media Education, Washington, D.C. Sources cited: Center for Science in the Public Interest and American Academy of Pediatrics.

10. How much of their own money do children spend each year?

ANSWER: b. $28 billion. Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers by Alissa Quart, Published by Perseus (2002).

11. How much of their parents' spending do children influence each year?

ANSWER: c. $600 billion. Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers by Alissa Quart, Published by Perseus (2002).

12. What percentage of Amercians would like to make children's television program "commercial free"?

ANSWER: a. 85 percent. Lake, Snell, Perry,and Associates, Television in the Digital Age: A Report to the Project on Media Ownership and The Benton Foundation. Washington, D.C.: December 1998.

13. In 1999, what percentage considered PBS the best for children's programming?

ANSWER: c. 44 percent. This represents a 28 precent drop in two years. Maybe it's due to the fact that PBS children's programs now feature commercials for theme parks, shopping websites and junk food, like MacDonald's, Chuch E. Cheese, and Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. National survey by Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1997,1999 as reported in Current, July 19, 1999.

14. According to child development specialists, how old is the average child when he or she is able to understand that the purpose of advertising is to sell a product?

ANSWER: c. 6-8 years old. So why is PBS peddling products on pre-school shows like Barnie and Sesame Street? Axel Edling, Swedish Consumer Ombudsman, ass cited in Gary Ruskin's, "Commercial Alert," December 9, 1999.

15. What is the average number of acts of violence that a U.S. child sees by the end of elementary school?

ANSWER: d. 100,000. This represents almost 1,000 a month from ages three through twelve. T.R.U.C.E. www.truceteachers.org

16. What is the average number of murders a U.S. child sees on television by the end of elemtary school?

ANSWER: d. 8,000. This represents more than three a day from ages three through twelve. T.R.U.C.E. www.truceteachers.org

17. By the time a child turns eighteen years of age, how many murders will he or she have seen on television?

ANSWER: d. 40,000. T.R.U.C.E. www.truceteachers.org

18. What percentage of U.S. cable subscribers have a choice of cable companies?

ANSWER: d. 5 percent. Out of the 94 million subscribers, 89 million live in communities served by only one cable company. Douglas Kellner. Television and the Crises of Democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990.

19. There are more than two million corporations in the United States. What is the number of corporations that account more than half of all media revenues (including TV, radio, newspapers, book/magazines, films and CD's)?

ANSWER: d. 5. This number is 10 percent of what it was in 1983 when 50 corporations dominated the media. The five corporations currently accounting for half or more of all media are: AOL/Time Warner, AT&T, CBS/Viacom, Disney and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2000. Figures updated by Project on Media Ownership, New York University.

20. What percentage of Americans believe that media companies are getting too big?

ANSWER: a. 70 percent. Study by Dhavan Shah, University of Wisconsin-Madison, for Digital Media Forum, as reported in The Benton Communications Policy Mailing List, September 14, 2000.Also see Media Access Project (http://www.mediaaccess.org).

21. How many commercials are broadcast on U.S. TV networks each week?

ANSWER: b. 6,000. This is a 50 percent increase from the 1983 number of 4,000 per week. Broadcasting & Cable, 2000.

22. In the last ten years, the number of households watching network television each season is down 20 percent. At the same time, revenues for prime-time advertising on network television are:

ANSWER: a. up 45 percent. Nielsen Media Research; also Myers Reports in New York Times, December 18, 2000.

23. How much is spent on broadcast advertising each year?

ANSWER: d. $54 billion. Broadcasting & Cable, 2001.

24. How much does the average U.S. family of four pay for commercial television programming?

ANSWER: a. $1,000. Advertising costs are added into the prices for brand name products and deducted from corporate tax obligations to the federal government. The public ends up paying for "free" TV in the end. George Gerbner, The Global Media Debate: It's Rise, Fall and Renewal. Ablex, 1993.

Public Broadcasting

25. What share of PBS national programming is produced by the top three stations (WBGH-TV Boston, WNET-TV New York and WETA-TV Washington DC)?

ANSWER: a. 60 percent. Corporation for Public Broadcasting

26. What is the number of the 351 PBS member stations that do not produce any programs for the PBS National Program Service?

ANSWER: a. 300. Corporation for Public Broadcasting

27. The typical PBS member station broadcasts how many hours of local programming in an average year?

ANSWER: a. 100. Corporation for Public Broadcasting

28. For public broadcast services, citizens of Denmark spend $136 a year, Germany $95, United Kingdom $55, Canada $50, Italy $48, France $36, Australia $28, and Japan $18. How much do U.S. citizens pay each year?

ANSWER: d. $1. This figure is significantly lower than for any modern nation and a major reason U.S. public broadcasting has become so dependent on corporate program underwriting. It would appear that there are political and corporate interets that do not want the public to have access to news and public affairs programming not controlled by them. Doug Sanders, "How the CBC Stacks Up Against Its Peers." Toronto Globe & Mail, June 10, 1999.

29. How much does the average full power commercial broadcast station pay the government each year to use our public airwaves?

ANSWER: d. $0. The public airwaves are the only public resources for which private industry pays no use fee. In fact, taxpayers subsidize the Federal Communcations Commission that protects broadcasters' claims on frequencies.Federal Communications Commission policy, created 1934.

30. What percentage of Americans know that broadcasters get access to the airwaves for free?

ANSWER: c. 29 percent. Lake, Snell, Perry and Associates, 1998.

31. What proportion of the public favors requiring commercial broadcasters to pay five percent of their profits into a fund to support public broadcasting programming?

ANSWER: b. 79 percent. Lake, Snell, Perry and Associates, 1998.