Infant hours

INFANT HOURS
It is not wrong to spend hours in front of the T.V. What is wrong is the social passivity that reality has created; it does not know how to look for other ways to spend its leisure time. This represents an empirical example of something that is not working. In principle, it seems as if reading, discussions, family time, friend reunions and studies are things of another world.
This issue becomes somewhat critical when the ones to be affected are children that spend too much time in front of the television. It is a serious issue for them to be spending one third of their awake-time outside of their respective T.V. infant hours. The Auto-regulation Code of content during infant hours, from 5 pm till 8 pm, programmed by television networks and the Government, has been infringed by all televisions 342 times. This is the corollary of the 5th Report conducted by the University Center of Villanueva and the Association of Tele-spectators and Radio-listeners.
According to an investigation performed by the University of Columbia and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, the youth population that watches television three hours a day has a higher risk of turning the practice into a habit as an adult.
Furthermore, the new EU Directive of Television without Barriers requires for Member States and the European Commission to impose onto their television networks the ratification of codes of conduct for those that compromise to not disseminate “junk food” commercials during the on-air time of children T.V. programs. This Directive has entered into force with vigor throughout the entire globe in 2009.
Auto-control examined, due to a petition conducted by advertisements and the media, a total of 1,500 ads directed towards children before they were aired. These numbers raise the percentage relative to last year’s to 21%. The majority of these ads were television spots.
Finally, the director of Disney Channel declared that they have “a vocation to be a television network with family oriented programs, dedicated to children until the age of 12. Our differential value is precisely the family.” This network could be the alternative to the national networks of “junk T.V.” (Translated by Gianna A. Sanchez-Moretti)
Author and journalist Clemente Ferrer has led a distinguished career in Spain in the fields of publicity and press relations. He is currently President of the European Institute of Marketing.
clementeferrer3@gmail.com