Reactions are mixed on TV for tots

Now, infants can pull up a bouncy chair, grab a bottle and have round-the-clock access to the nation's first channel for babies, BabyFirstTV, featuring three-minute segments designed for babies as young as 6 months.

The satellite channel, which premiered on Mother's Day, touts itself as a "learning experience" for babies and their parents with developmental benefits. But it has come under fire from child development experts who say the claims are false and fly in the face of the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation of no TV at all for children under age 2.

"I had that appalled, shocked reaction. (Babies) are these wide-open, defenseless, clueless targets," said Berkeley, Calif., child psychologist Allen Kanner, co-founder of the national group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which has filed a false advertising complaint against the channel with the Federal Trade Commission.

But some parents have had the opposite response. Kathy King, a Sacramento-area mother of two, signed up after coming across a free trial.

"They were both mesmerized," the middle-school science teacher said of her sons, 2-year-old Wyatt and 10-month-old Wesley.

BabyFirstTV is not alone. Early entrants into the market nearly a decade ago included the "Teletubbies" TV show from Britain, geared for 1- and 2-year-olds, and Baby Einstein, which sells DVDs for children as young as 1 month. PBS last year launched a 24-hour cable channel called Sprout for 2- to 5-year-olds. And Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind "Sesame Street," this spring released "Sesame Beginnings," DVDs for the under-2 crowd.

"Is it right for them to be watching? The fact of life is, they are watching," said BabyFirstTV co-founder Sharon Rechter. "Parents should watch with them appropriate programming they can enjoy."

Rechter, 31, now pregnant with her first child, said she started the satellite channel — available on Dish Network and DirecTV for $10 a month — when she saw a "great need" as her friends had babies. She estimated the market for children's DVDs and videos at $1.5 billion.

The commercial-free channel offers 44 series, including original programming and video segments such as Brainy Baby.

They vary from a show that teaches sign language to a cartoon duck that guesses animal sounds to a black train chugging across a white background while classical music plays.

A study this past spring by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in Menlo Park, Calif., found that 61 percent of American children younger than 2 watch TV or videos, and 43 percent watch every day.

A Sesame Workshop study showed a positive relationship between viewing "Sesame Street" and preschoolers' achievement in reading and math, though other research shows a negative correlation between achievement and TV, said Vicky Rideout, director of the Kaiser Foundation's Program for the Study of Entertainment Media and Health.

Rideout said studies show that children learn better by doing than by watching. Some research has shown that children mimic both violent and "pro-social" behavior seen on TV, while other research links television with both obesity and attention problems, she said.

But "babies watching baby videos and DVDs is a huge unknown," she said.

That's one reason the American Academy of Pediatrics has no plans to modify its recommendation that children younger than 2 engage in no "screen time" and that toddlers watch no more than two hours of quality programming each day, said pediatrician Don Shiffrin, who heads the group's communications committee.

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, based in Boston, filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission against BabyFirstTV, Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby, accusing them of making false and deceptive claims when they say their programs have educational and developmental benefits.

Rechter downplayed the complaint against her company.

"I don't think we over-promise anything," she said.