France bans broadcast of TV shows for babies

PARIS — France's broadcast authority has banned French channels from airing TV shows aimed at children under three years old, to shield them from developmental risks it says television viewing poses at that age.

The ruling also ordered warning messages for parents on foreign baby channels that are broadcast in France — such as Baby TV, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., and BabyFirstTV, which has ties to News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment.

The High Audiovisual Council, in a ruling published Wednesday, said it wanted to "protect children under three from the effects of television."

France's minister for culture and communication, Christine Albanel, issued a "cry of alarm" to parents in June about channels dedicated 24 hours a day to baby-targeted programming. In a newspaper interview, she called them "a danger" and urged parents not to use them to help their children get to sleep.

She was referring to BabyFirstTV and Baby TV, two foreign channels that can be seen in France on cable television.

The council's ruling aims to prevent the development of such programming on French channels. It also orders French cable operators that air foreign channels with programs for babies to broadcast warning messages to parents. The messages will read: "Watching television can slow the development of children under three, even when it involves channels aimed specifically at them."

The ruling cites health experts as saying that interaction with other people is crucial to early child development.

"Television viewing hurts the development of children under three years old and poses a certain number of risks, encouraging passivity, slow language acquisition, over-excitedness, troubles with sleep and concentration as well as dependence on screens," the ruling said.

When BabyFirstTV began airing in the United States in 2006, it escalated an already heated national debate. The American Academy of Pediatrics has said babies should be kept away from television altogether.

BabyFirstTV and other companies say their products are designed to be watched by babies and parents together in an interactive manner. Critics say such channels are used as a baby sitter.

The three companies behind BabyFirstTV are Regency Enterprises, a film and TV production company that is a partner of News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment; Kardan N.V., an investment group based in the Netherlands and Israel; and Bellco Capital, a private Los Angeles-based investment fund.

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