What is Quality Children's Television?

Abstract

The project described in this article takes the first step toward defining the construct of quality children's television by empirically analyzing how the industry defines quality. Our goal was to explore the characteristics of the best of children's programming to determine the characteristics of a quality product. Our data were drawn from the archives of the George Foster Peabody Awards to study all the award-winning programs in the children's category in order to answer the following research questions: (1) what are the characteristics of a quality program; and (2) what claims does the industry make about a quality program? There are a number of characteristics of winning shows. The preponderance of awards went to programs that were educational or dramatic. Nearly one-third of awards were given to specials; local shows garnered a hefty 11 percent of awards. In many ways, award-winning programs were divergent from the norm in children's programming. Beyond the observable characteristics of shows were the qualities claimed for them in the nomination process. Our 67 winning shows generated 332 separate claims, which can be categorized broadly into claims about excellence in production, superiority, instruction, influence, age appropriateness, and prestigious participants.

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