NBC and Fox Hire Sitters for the Kids

Having chafed for years against a public-service mandate requiring them to set aside space for children’s programming, two major broadcasters are essentially opting to meet that obligation by becoming absentee landlords.

NBC and Fox will air Saturday morning programs for kids this fall, designed to comply with the Children’s Television Act, which states that broadcasters must televise at least three hours of educational or informational shows each week as a condition of their valuable broadcast licenses. Yet both networks have abdicated their role in developing those programs, instead leasing blocks of time to companies that will produce the shows and sell the ads in exchange for a flat fee.

NBC struck a three-year agreement with the Discovery Channel, which will launch a new lineup that includes series derived from its special “Walking With Prehistoric Beasts” and “The Crocodile Hunter” in early October.

Fox, meanwhile, generated a bidding war before leasing its Saturday morning real estate to 4Kids Entertainment--the proprietor of such Japanese franchises as “Pokemon” and “Yu-Gi-Oh!”--in a four-year deal valued at $100 million.

Premiering Sept. 14, 4Kids’ heavily boy-oriented schedule, dubbed “Fox Box,” includes a series based on the video-game character Kirby, a spinoff of the movie “Stargate,” a new version of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” for early next year, and a show about “super-wrestlers” titled “Ultimate Muscle.”

Industry observers question whether 4Kids in particular will find itself pinned under the financial weight of the deal. To succeed, they say, the company must introduce toy-driven concepts that can garner millions in merchandising revenues.

Toper Taylor, president of Nelvana Communications, which produces such children’s shows as “Babar” and “Little Bear,” said given the pressure to yield returns in merchandising, “the kids business becomes a lot more transactional and consumer-products focused.”

Al Kahn, chairman of 4Kids Entertainment, insisted advertising sales were better than expected and that his company should be in a break-even position from advertising revenue alone, hoping to turn a profit from video sales and merchandising.

In addition, Kahn noted that when it came to securing precious shelf space for its programs, 4Kids would no longer be at the mercy of the networks, which struck increasingly onerous deals with outside producers as they sought to cash in on the next children’s hit.

Executives involved in the deals maintain if they’ve done their job right, viewers will have no reason to notice the backstage changes that have occurred. In fact, they argue the new tenants have a stronger commitment to kids programming than did the major networks, who generally viewed the requirement as a financial albatross.

“We’re investing significantly in marketing to kids ... and promoting the block in a way that hasn’t been done for years,” said Discovery Kids General Manager Marjorie Kaplan. “It’s a huge win for the viewer that companies have a stake in building for that audience.”

“We ratchet up the level of competitive choice for kids,” Kahn added.

The new occupants, however, face an uphill battle, challenging studios with deep roots in the children’s arena and sister cable networks that have already become primary destinations for many kids. The three heavyweights are Warner Bros., which runs animated programming throughout the week and has access to a vast assortment of children’s properties (including DC Comics), the WB and Cartoon Network; the Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC and the Disney Channel; and Viacom, owner of children’s leader Nickelodeon, which draws from that channel to program CBS’ Saturday morning block.

Nickelodeon averaged more than 2 million viewers on Saturday mornings last season within the key demographic of children age 2 to 11, based on Nielsen estimates. The WB followed at 1.3 million, a 9% increase from the previous year. Underscoring the shift to cable, Cartoon Network was third, improving to 880,000 kids, while Fox’s average dropped 20% to 760,000. ABC and CBS each averaged about 750,000, with the former falling 13% year to year while the latter rose slightly.

Ratings also break down by gender, with most broadcast programs skewing sharply toward one gender. PBS and Nickelodeon tend to play more broadly, with shows like “SpongeBob Squarepants” and “Rugrats” attracting girls and boys.

Some critics question if networks are truly fulfilling the spirit of their federal obligation by forgoing input in the creative process. Peggy Charren--the Boston activist who founded Action for Children’s Television, whose lobbying led to the Children’s Television Act--suggests the commercial networks had already watered down the act’s wording to the point where anything could be labeled “educational,” rendering the guidelines all but meaningless.

As for the migration of children to cable, Charren points out that roughly a quarter of homes still don’t receive those channels, which has inspired her to focus on safeguarding funds for public television--the last broadcast haven for educational fare.

“It’s the economics of television watching, in terms of the haves and have-nots, we still have to worry about,” she said. “It’s the poor kids that get the short end of the stick, and that’s still happening in children’s television.”

Donna Friedman, executive vice president of Kids’ WB, which has a new version of “Scooby-Doo” in its arsenal, contends that children are well-served by the programming available and the new entrants will add to that.

“Overall, I think it will be more competitive. Both have invested a lot of money in the time slot and need to make it work,” she said, adding that children’s programmers have “really raised the bar” in terms of quality. (The WB is partly owned by Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times.)

Still, Nelvana’s Taylor noted that breakout hits have traditionally arisen from unexpected sources that took creative risks, as opposed to just plugging shows into a predetermined mold. Whether that can happen as readily under a more corporate approach, with networks leasing out time, remains to be seen.

“You can’t just formulize kids TV,” he said, “and I worry about that happening on a consumer level over the next few years.”