§ 76.225 - Commercial limits in children's programs.

§ 76.225 Commercial limits in children's programs.

(a) No cable operator shall air more than 10.5 minutes of commercial matter per hour during children's programming on weekends, or more than 12 minutes of commercial matter per hour on weekdays.

(b) The display of Internet Web site addresses during program material or promotional material not counted as commercial time is permitted only if the Web site:

(1) Offers a substantial amount of bona fide program-related or other noncommercial content;

(2) Is not primarily intended for commercial purposes, including either e-commerce or advertising;

(3) The Web site's home page and other menu pages are clearly labeled to distinguish the noncommercial from the commercial sections; and

(4) The page of the Web site to which viewers are directed by the Web site address is not used for e-commerce, advertising, or other commercial purposes (e.g., contains no links labeled “store” and no links to another page with commercial material).

(c) If an Internet address for a Web site that does not meet the test in paragraph (b) of this section is displayed during a promotion in a children's program, in addition to counting against the commercial time limits in paragraph (a) of this section the promotion must be clearly separated from program material.

(d)

(1) Entities subject to commercial time limits under the Children's Television Act shall not display a Web site address during or adjacent to a program if, at that time, on pages that are primarily devoted to free noncommercial content regarding that specific program or a character appearing in that program:

(i) Products are sold that feature a character appearing in that program; or

(ii) A character appearing in that program is used to actively sell products.

(2) The requirements of this paragraph do not apply to:

(i) Third-party sites linked from the companies' Web pages;

(ii) On-air third-party advertisements with Web site references to third-party Web sites; or

(iii) Pages that are primarily devoted to multiple characters from multiple programs.

(e) The requirements of this section shall not apply to programs aired on a broadcast television channel which the cable operator passively carries, or to access channels over which the cable operator may not exercise editorial control, pursuant to 47 U.S.C. 531(e) and 532(c)(2).

Note 1 to § 76.225:

Commercial matter means air time sold for purposes of selling a product or service and promotions of television programs or video programming services other than children's or other age-appropriate programming appearing on the same channel or promotions for children's educational and informational programming on any channel.

Note 2 to § 76.225:

For purposes of this section, children's programming refers to programs originally produced and broadcast primarily for an audience of children 12 years old and younger.

Note 3 to § 76.225:

Section 76.1703 contains recordkeeping requirements for cable operators with regard to children's programming.

[56 FR 19616, Apr. 29, 1991, as amended at 65 FR 53615, Sept. 5, 2000; 70 FR 38, Jan. 3, 2005; 71 FR 64165, Nov. 1, 2006]