BATTLE NOT OVER FOR CHILDREN'S TV ADVOCATE.

Byline: Steve Hall Indianapolis Star and News

After nearly 30 years of pushing for quality children's programming, Peggy Charren still doesn't like what she sees on the tube.

"It's worse now than when I started," said the co-founder of Action for Children's Television, dismayed by violent cartoons such as "The X-Men" and shopping- and hair-related shows and ads aimed at girls. The telecommunications bill signed into law by President Clinton last week is an example of a wrong approach to the problem, she said.

"We needed a telecommunications bill, but the law doesn't say anything about the need for good children's programming," said Charren, a diminutive 67-year-old grandmother with large glasses, a hearty laugh and a passion for fighting broadcasters interested in profits rather than the public good.

"The law mandates the V-chip, a device for parents to block violent shows. But if you turn off what's wrong, what should be there for kids turn to? The law doesn't address that."

"I'm getting all these nice pats on the back," Charren said. "The Presidential Medal of Freedom (in 1995), the Peabody Award (in 1992) ... I must be getting them for perseverance, since the problem hasn't gone away. It would be better if I'd helped solve the problem."

But she has dramatically publicized the usually advertiser-driven world of children's programming with ACT. Charren founded the organization in 1968 with two other housewives in Newton, Mass. As an organizer of children's book fairs, she hoped to get some book-based programming on television. She thought the effort might take two or three years.

Instead, Charren's quest for better children's programming lasted 23 years, culminating in the 1990 Children's Television Act. The law limited the amount of advertising time within children's programs and required broadcasters to demonstrate they have served "the educational and informational needs of children" in order to have their licenses renewed.

ACT also successfully pushed for federal rules to ban advertisements of pills, fireworks and 900 telephone numbers on children's shows before Charren disbanded the organization in 1992.Charren believed a coalition of larger groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Parent-Teacher Association and the Center for Science for Public Interest, would take up the job of holding broadcasters responsible to the law.

That largely hasn't happened. Broadcasters tried to claim such cartoons as "The Jetsons" and "Bucky O'Hare" were educational.

Producers also found a way to circumvent a law prohibiting toy companies from advertising show-related products during a show's broadcast. The law was based on the theory that very young viewers can't distinguish between a program and a commercial.A recent Washington Post article described how companies buy the air time for such toy-related shows as "Street Sharks" and "Skysurfer Strike Force" with a promise to purchase thousands of dollars of commercials on the station.

Charren is "terribly irritated" at the sneaky tactics, but "I tend to think it's my fault more than anyone else. We can't trust broadcasters to police themselves, and maybe I just need to get that message out to the public in some better way. It's like what happens in a war. I might lose a battle, but I don't give up - I just try to do it better and get up that hill somehow."

She thinks reinforcements may be on the way - led by Federal Communications Commission chairman Reed Hundt. He would like an FCC rule that stations set aside three hours a week for educational children's programming, and needs only three of the five commissioners to agree.