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"As a result of routine audits conducted by Enforcement Bureau
field agents, serious questions arose concerning the amount of commercial
matter during children's programs on the ABC Family Channel and
Nickelodeon. Both channels are hugely popular with children and
are carried on virtually all cable systems nationwide, each reaching
in excess of 85 million households," the FCC was quoted in
a media report as saying.
The FCC rules of the time limits apply to over-the-air broadcasters
and cable operators for programming originally produced and aired
for an audience of 12 years and younger, said the report. Apart
from that, the rules also bar broadcasters from airing commercials
that refer to or offer products that are related to the children's
program.
FCC chairman Michael Powell was quoted in a media report as saying
that the announcement marked the end of "major investigations"
regarding rules violations governing limits on advertising during
children's TV programming.
"While the vast majority of our programing hours were well
under the FCC commercial allotments, we take full responsibility
for any errors, and have initiated new procedures to help ensure
this will not happen again," Viacom was quoted in a media report
as saying.
However, a spokesperson from ABC said that it had "accidentally"
violated the ban on running programme-related commercials because
of a problem with its computer system. The problem has now been
taken care of and it was pointed out that the company has derived
no "economic benefit" from the apparent mistake.
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