Tied to the Tube: Do Kids Need Another Reason To Sit on It?
(June 11, 2004)

All for kids, all of the time.

Look for such sloganeering to crop up soon as Comcast Corp. tries to finalize the knitting on a deal that would take the toddler programs from Public Broadcasting System, HIT Entertainment and Sesame Street Workshop and feed them to cable subscribers 24 hours a day.

That's 24 hours of non-stop Bert and Ernie and Big Bird and Barney and Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine and on and on.

The formation and launch of the toddler TV network could happen within the year, according to the June 9 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

Comcast, you recall, was striving mightily to make a deal for Walt Disney Co. earlier this year. When that failed, the cable TV giant redirected its energies.

So, the little kids' market is hot. But how hot is the idea of unabated eye candy for the wee ones?

For those who are concerned about shrinking attention spans among America's youth, Pediatrics magazine in April reported on a new study of 1,300 toddlers that showed frequent TV viewers were likeliest to rank high in concentration problems, impulsiveness and restlessness.

And, in an era when the media cannot get enough of the "Obese in America" angle, look for a new anti-corpulent corps of protesters to question the benefits of giving little kids even more reasons to lead the sedentary life.

-- Jim Wisuri