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August 12

Why does Food for Thought with Claire Thomas have an E/I rating ?

See Claire Thomas. This is just a normal cooking show, not a healthy cooking for kids show. She makes desserts with lots of sugar and even espresso. So how does this deserve a rating as "educational or informational", while other cooking shows do not ? StuRat (talk) 16:46, 12 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I get the feeling from our article and sources like [1] [2] [3] that the actual definition of "educational and informational" is very open. The primary dispute seem to be over shows which are primarily scripted entertainment like Degrassi: The Next Generation or in the past the Flintstones. Shows with a more real life and loosely educational nature, like Animal Miracles are more tolerated provided they are suitable for some kids (by which I'm including teens 13 to 16 year old). Notably while they may be suitable and educational, I'm not seeing much evidence that there's much consideration over whether kids (again including teens) will be interested in the shows.

AFAICT that cooking show is nowadays? produced primarily with the E&I market in mind so I presume most episodes and definitely all that air tend to be stuff that teens could cook, perhaps sometimes with assistance, and the talking etc is structured for that audience. I had a look at one episode and I'm also seeing mini health or education segments. And even before that, I was presuming there is some health focus, but as there's no universal agreement desserts with high sugar content nor espresso should never be consumed by teens, it seems unlikely such episodes would be held unsuitable for teens. (Episodes which talk about aphrodisiacs however would probably be out or at least those parts removed.)

Note that the last external link says

For purposes of determining under this section whether programming has a significant purpose of serving the educational and informational needs of children, the Commission will ordinarily rely on the good faith judgments of the licensee. Commission review of compliance with that element of the definition will be done only as a last resort.

And this [4] has what appears to be the E/I justification for the show used by one network:

Claire serves as a role model for 13- to 16-year-old viewers by showing her passion for her family, life and healthy living by sharing stories in the kitchen.

In other words, the primary reason why it's an E/I show is probably because Litton Entertainment has chosen it for their Litton's Weekend Adventure and feel they have sufficient legal justification under the law and FCC's rules/interpretation to classify it as such. And the networks airing it either trust Litton or formed their consensus opinion.

And either the FCC agrees with them or more likely they haven't heard of anything so obviously wrong that they've looked into it in any depth, either not receiving any complaints or not the number they expect to receive before looking into the situation in more depth. If you do disagree with Litton's/the network's views, your best bet would be to complain to the FCC although as I said, I'm not convinced they will be seen as not meeting the criteria. And interesting enough, since it's apparently targeted ad 13 to 16 year olds rather than 12 and under, this means I think there as significantly fewer restrictions on advertising.

Other cooking shows may very well be the same, so it just takes someone to decide to use them. Sources like [5] and [6] suggest they aren't the only cooking shows to be E/I and I'm not sure the other ones have any more of a focus on children (whether teens or younger ones). Although there is mention of healthy cooking in one source and the other one is 15 minute meals which you might be something a teen is more likely to actually try, yet I don't think it was the only target audience. (Still I doubt these are the only examples.)

Nil Einne (talk) 17:59, 12 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Probably should mention that frankly I'd be more worried about some of the other E&I shows mentioned in the various sources. The typos in the example justifications also make me think these things don't get that much attention. Nil Einne (talk) 18:07, 12 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to point out that if you teach young children how to make and drink espresso, they will undoubtedly have an experience that can only be classified as a life-lesson (as will you).OldTimeNESter (talk) 03:37, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]