House Panel Limits Ads for Children’s TV

WASHINGTON — A House panel today approved a bill to limit the amount of advertising that may be shown during children’s television programs.

The House Commerce and Energy Committee voted 39 to 3 to send the measure to the House floor, where it is expected to win approval.

The measure is a bipartisan compromise stripped of earlier proposals to prohibit programs built around toy manufacturers’ products. Critics of these programs call them “program-length commercials.”

Senate legislation on children’s TV would bar these programs.

The bill passed by the House committee would limit TV stations to no more than 10 1/2 minutes of commercials per hour during children’s shows on weekends and 12 minutes per hour during these programs on weekdays.

It also would require the Federal Communications Commission to consider, when deciding whether to renew a station’s license, whether the station complied with the advertising limits and served the educational needs of children in its overall programming.

The National Assn. of Broadcasters, which has said it will not oppose the House measure, says no stations would have difficulty meeting the limits in the legislation.