January 8, 1973
The Federal Communications Commission held a 2-hour hearing on a proposal made by a citizen’s action group called Action for Children’s Television (ACT) to ban advertisements during children’s television shows. Responding to concerns raised by ACT, the National Association of Broadcasters adopted a revised code limiting commercial time in children’s programming to twelve minutes per hour. Additionally, the hosts of children’s television programs were prohibited from appearing in commercials aimed at children. ACT had also challenged the promotion of vitamins to children. “One-third of the commercials were for vitamin pills, even though the bottles said, ‘Keep out of reach of children’ because an overdose could put them in a coma,” they noted.
