When my daughter started watching television, I only
let her watch Nick Jr. because its programming was geared toward preschoolers. It was “safe” because there were no commercials.
With the beginning of the school year, I noticed
Nick Jr. started to air commercials. I was surprised and
disappointed. While they showed only a few, they were hawking
products nevertheless. I noticed my daughter was glued to these commercials because
they were very entertaining (Dora’s playhouse! Fisher-Price rock ‘n roll toys! Winx
Club dolls!).
Here is Nick Jr.’s explanation as stated on
its website:
As always, Nick Jr.'s
preschool shows remains the safe, educational place you and your kids have come
to rely on. In order to create the highest-quality, educational and
entertaining shows and characters for preschoolers, starting on October 1, we
plan to carry limited advertising on Nick Jr. We've taken great care to ensure
that we are being responsible in the ways we are adding advertising to Nick Jr.
and keeping the educational experience intact for our preschool audience: The
limited advertising on Nick Jr. will air well below the allotted commercial
time set by the FCC; many of the commercials will be messages directly for
parents, not kids; and this messaging will never appear within a program, only
between shows.
Though Nick Jr. states that many of its commercials are targeted to
moms, our children are still seeing them. Let’s get real – the reason Nick Jr. is airing
these commercials is to generate ad revenue. I understand that it’s lucrative,
but they just marred the one sacred spot that parents considered “pure” from
commercialism.
Once my daughter graduates into older programming, she
will have plenty of opportunities for commercials to influence her. For now, I'd like to keep her away from advertisements as long as possible. As a result
of Nick Jr. “selling out” to advertisers, my daughter now watches more Disney Jr. which is commercial-free.
Do you think it matters if young children watch commercials?
We moved over to Disney Jr., too. Commercial-free was a significant motivating factor.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me so mad! And the Winx commercials are awful!! How can I let my daughter see those? So sad.
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