WHAT IS QUALITY CHILDRENS TELEVISION

The project described in this article takes the first step toward defi ning the construct of quality children's television by empirically ana lyzing how the industry defines quality. Our goal was to explore the c haracteristics of the best of children's programming to determine the characteristics of a quality product. Our data were drawn from the arc hives of the George Foster Peabody Awards to study all the award-winni ng programs in the children's category in order to answer the followin g research questions: (1) what are the characteristics of a quality pr ogram; and (2) what claims does the industry make about a quality prog ram? There are a number of characteristics of winning shows. The prepo nderance of awards went to programs that were educational or dramatic. Nearly one-third of awards were given to specials; local shows garner ed a hefty 11 percent of awards. In many ways, award-winning programs were divergent from the norm in children's programming. Beyond the obs ervable characteristics of shows were the qualities claimed for them i n 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 appropriatenes s, and prestigious participants.