Pacing in Children's Television Programming

Following a content analysis, 85 children's programs were assigned a pacing index derived from the following criteria: (1) frequency of camera cuts; (2) frequency of related scene changes; (3) frequency of unrelated scene changes; (4) frequency of auditory changes; (5) percentage of active motion; (6) percentage of active talking; and (7) percentage of active music. Results indicated significant differences in networks' pacing overall and in the individual criteria: the commercial networks present the bulk of the very rapidly paced programming (much of it in the form of cartoons), and those networks devoted primarily to educational programming--PBS and The Learning Channel--present very slow-paced programs. (Contains 26 references, and 12 tables and a figure of data.) (RS)