The Evolution of Educational Television
According to Merriam-Webster.com, educational television is, “Television that provides instruction especially for students.” While this definition seems plain and clear, there was a time in our nation’s history that it was a very confusing and concerning matter. Today, cable television offers thousands of channels that are geared toward every demographic one could imagine. Whether you are an outdoors enthusiast, a diehard sports fan, or a game show lover, there are multiple channels and programs you can tune into to get your fix. However, before the world of satellite dishes and DVR’s, cable television was limited to just a few channels. As a result, networks had to allot their airtime wisely to make sure they were making as much money as possible.
During the late 1960’s television was growing vastly in popularity. Men, women, and children of all ages were tuning in every day to watch their favorite programs. Initially, children’s television was regularly aired on the major networks because it was cheap to do so and everyone was happy…except the television networks, who realized that there was more money to be made in adult television programs. In addition, of those television shows geared towards children, most of them were cartoons with a lot of commercials which parents later protested were unfairly targeting their youth. According to a study done by Doolittle, John and Robert Pepper about children’s television ads in the 70’s, “Product use, such as eating food or playing with a toy, was featured in 75% of the advertisements. There was a tendency for the product to be shown being used live.” Parents were concerned that these ads were manipulating the fragile minds of their children by urging them to ask their parents to purchase a specific product. Since the cool kids on television were playing with a certain