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CNN PAULA ZAHN NOW, May 11, 2006

TV Network For Babies?

Now, if you have kids, you probably struggle with this question every day, how much TV is too much? Should they be able to watch at all? So what would you think if I told you there is a brand new television channel aimed at toddlers, even babies? Its premier is igniting a debate over how early is too early when it comes to kids and TV.

Brooke Anderson has tonight's "What Were They Thinking?"

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Baby First TV is putting baby first. The new television network is targeting audiences under the age of there.

Co-founder Sharon Rechter who has no kids of her own yet says she saw a clear need for programming that would allow parents to watch with their kids. So she worked for two years with a team of physicians and educators to develop the channel, which just yesterday became available in more than 15 million homes.

SHARON RECHTER, CO-FOUNDER/EVP: We are transforming the TV set from a passive activity to an active that can help babies and parents bond together.

ANDERSON: Colors, shapes, sign language classes, even baby yoga are available around the clock for infant fueling. The concept is a pleasing one for some but a concern for others.

(on-camera): A 1999 policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics linked TV viewing by children of all ages to a number of negative health issues, including aggressive behavior and childhood obesity. In that same report they made a recommendation discouraging any tube time for children under the age of two.

(voice over): But Rechter believes Baby First TV addresses those concerns appropriately.

RECHTER: All the research and the statement the AAP issued does not distinguish between different kinds of content. It talks about television in general. You cannot compare, for example, "Sopranos" to baby etiquette programming.

ANDERSON: Programming that Baby First TV believes will actually improve the health of children by also educating their parents.

RECHTER: We have a parenting show airing in June that is designed to give parents the basis of nutrition for babies, simple recipes for the mom that holds the baby in one hand and stirs in the other.

ANDERSON: Ultimately, Rechter hopes that Baby First TV will serve as a tool parents use to teach their little ones.

Brooke Anderson, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Well, right now the story has reached the boiling point.

Joining me now Dr. Edward McCabe, a pediatrician and physician in chief at UCLA's Mattel Children's Hospital, he's on the Baby First TV advisory board, and Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston's Children Hospital, he is a real opponent of Baby TV. Good to have both of you.

Dr. McCabe, we noted that you were on the advisory board of this television channel. Are you paid to represent them

?DR. EDWARD MCCABE, MATTEL CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: I'm paid for my time. But the rules of my department at the University of California, Los Angeles are that money, the money for consulting will go to UCLA.

ZAHN: So you're profiting or at least your organization is profiting on this. So a lot of people out there -- well, of course you'll say good things about baby TV because your university benefits from it.

MCCABE: But I was skeptical. When I had my first meeting with Sharon Rechter and the others from Baby First TV, I thought this is crazy. TV for babies, what are we thinking about here

?ZAHN: Well, the Pediatric Association has told us that children under the age of two shouldn't watch TV.

MCCABE: But kids are watching TV. Fifty-nine percent of kids two years old and younger are watching TV. We feel it's appropriate to give developmentally appropriate content, and that's what really caught me. If we're going to have kids watching TV, then let's have the appropriate content for kids.

ZAHN: Dr. Rich, do you think kids can learn from this -- what Dr. McCabe just described, as appropriate developmental material

?DR. MICHAEL RICH, DIR. CTR. ON MEDIA & CHILD HEALTH: Well, the problem with what he's just described is all of the research we have to date shows that children under the age of 30 months probably aren't able to decode the two-dimensional image of the screen and actually learn anything from television.

It is not content related. It is medium related, and that there is no evidence out there of what is developmentally appropriate or not. So this is all speculation on his part, and I, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as serious researchers in this realm, hesitate to risk the future development of our children based on what they think is appropriate.

ZAHN: Well, if there are no definitive studies on this, what are you afraid of will happen? How could it possibly hurt a child

?RICH: Well, there are studies that show that children who watch television early are more predisposed to obesity, that they develop language later and more poorly, that they read later and less, that many of the positive developmental affects that are brought on during this incredibly rapid period of brain develop from contact with human beings, from creative problem-solving play and from manipulating their physical environment are not presented at all by television.

So the concern is that this television watching actually results in poor brain development due to these neurons, which may be necessary, being pruned away.

ZAHN: Dr. McCabe, your reaction to that? Any parent hearing that will be terrified by that obviously. We want to give our kids every chance we can.

MCCABE: Parents want to be the best parents they can be. It's a struggle with the complex worlds that we live in today, and parents are having their children watch TV.

ZAHN: But do you deny that it could affect the development of the neurons in the brain

?MCCABE: I don't think the evidence is definitive, and I would argue that decoding the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional world, we haven't had the technology. If a child could be doing a puzzle and doing the three-dimensional movement, and then see the puzzle being worked on, on the screen, maybe technology has limited our ability to decode in previous times.

This is a new technology and new content, and I would hope the American Academy of Pediatrics would give it a chance.

ZAHN: And Dr. Rich is saying no way, they know what they need to know so far.

And we appreciate both of your perspectives tonight. I think parents listening to you are going to have to decide for themselves.

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