Children's Television in Ghana: History, Policy, Diversity, and Prospects in a

Changing Media Environment

A dissertation presented to

the faculty of

the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Enyonam M. Osei-Hwere

August 2008
 © 2008

Enyonam M. Osei-Hwere

All Rights Reserved

ii
 This dissertation titled

Children's Television In Ghana: History, Policy, Diversity, and Prospects in a

Changing Media Environment

by

ENYONAM M. OSEI-HWERE

has been approved for

the School of Media Arts and Studies

and the Scripps College of Communication by

Norma Pecora

Professor of Telecommunication

Gregory J. Shepherd

Dean, Scripps College of Communication

iii
 ABSTRACT

OSEI-HWERE, ENYONAM MILLICENT, Ph.D, August 2008, Mass Communication

Children's Television in Ghana: History, Policy, Diversity, and Prospects in a

Changing Media Environment (258 pp.)

Director of Dissertation: Norma Pecora

Children’s Television in Ghana: History, Policy, Diversity, and Prospects

in a Changing Media Environment examines children’s television in Ghana with

the aim of exploring the different factors influencing the diversity and market

structure of the industry. In order to better understand the diversity of children’s

television in Ghana Bryant’s (2007) children’s television community; Industrial

Organization Model (Scherer and Ross, 1990); and government and market

failure theory (Weisbrod, 1975, 1977) are adapted as the theoretical foundations

needed to navigate the answers to the research questions the dissertation sets out

to answer. The three theoretical frameworks provide a direction for exploring the

political and economic factors influencing the diversity of television programs for

children in Ghana.

The dissertation utilizes three methods to obtain and analyze information

and data for the dissertation. Content analysis was used to obtain children’s

television data from television schedules for the three largest television stations

in the capital of Ghana. The schedules for the three television stations are

published in Radio & TV Guide which is a monthly entertainment magazine

published in Ghana. One-on-one semi-structured interviews with a number of

core open-ended questions based on the functions of interviewees were used with
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station managers, media professionals, government organization officials,

content creators and non-government organization officials. Finally secondary

sources such as relevant industry documents from broadcasting stations,

nongovernmental organizations, and government sources were reviewed to gain

data on the provision of children’s television programs and to corroborate

information gained from the interviewees and content analysis data. In order to

obtain both an objective and subjective determination of the diversity of

children’s television in Ghana it was important to use multiple methods.

Findings from the dissertation showed that there was significant diversity

in the offerings of children’s content on television in the industry in Ghana. In

addition the three stations provision of significant amounts programming hours

for children’s television was very comparable to the amount of programming

provided for children in other countries.

Within the four year period studied the three free to air television stations

together provided a total of 6267 hours of programming for children. The three

television stations provided both educational and entertainment programs and

together targeted the different age-groups of children in Ghana.

There were very clear distinctions and differences between the three

stations in their efforts to provide television programming for children in Ghana.

However, there were clear signs of declines in the amount of programming on

television for children with all three stations by the end of the study period.

Future studies of the children’s television industry in Ghana may reflect results

different from what this dissertation reveals. This is because the industry under
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the direction of the national television station began taking steps in 2005 to

revamp the industry with the aim of improving the quality of children’s

television. Children’s television in Ghana has always enjoyed a strong history

with its provision of quality programming for children and continues to explore

ways to strengthen itself as reflected in the outcome of the dissertation.

Approved:_____________________________________________

Norma Pecora

Professor of Telecommunication

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 DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to Patrick Osei-Hwere and

Mr. and Mrs. Evans Anomah for every encouraging word and

every time you prayed for my success. Thank you for all your help

and support. I couldn’t have done this without the consistent

inspiration and motivation I received from all of you.

Thank You and God Bless!

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This journey began over six years ago and looking ahead to the end of the

road I am very thankful to God for His love, guidance and the blessing of this

opportunity of higher education. Patrick my dear husband, you have been an

unwavering support for me throughout this process and I love you always. Mom,

Dad, Viva Dzifa Anomah and Ruby Emefa Anomah you all inspired me to excel

and challenge myself and I am thankful for your love and support. I love you all

very dearly and really couldn’t have done this without any of you. Osei-Hwere

family, thank you all for your encouragement, prayers and support, I love you all

very much.

To all my friends and extended family, you have been an essential part of

my life and all of my accomplishments. You have been a source of great strength

and perseverance for me and inspire me unto good and great things. Thank you

all for being great friends.

Dr. Pecora, your guidance, support and consistent encouragement

certainly led me to this accomplishment; you have been a wonderful adviser but

above all, a close friend and mentor and I look forward to future collaborations

with you. Dr. Duncan Brown, Dr. Arvind Singhal, Dr. Joseph Bernt and Dr.

Judith Millesen, thank you for agreeing to serve on my committee. I truly

appreciate all your help, support and endless contributions, thank you! To the

entire faculty of the School of Media Arts and Studies and the Scripps College of

Communication thank you for being great teachers.

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 To the Department of Residence Life, thank you for the opportunity to

make an impact and a difference in the lives of students. Thank you also for the

opportunity to be a member of your wonderful department.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. IV 

DEDICATION........................................................................................................ VII 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................................................................... VIII 

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................ XIV 

LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................. XVI 

INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1 

Rationale and Significance of Dissertation................................................... 3 

Research Objectives ...................................................................................... 6 

Research Questions ....................................................................................... 7 

Research Format ........................................................................................... 8 

Definition of Terms ....................................................................................... 9 

Chapter Overview ........................................................................................ 12 

CHAPTER 1: STATE OF CHILDREN’S MEDIA IN AFRICA ................................ 15 

Challenges of African Media ....................................................................... 18 

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...................................................... 30 

Government Failure Theory and Market Failure Theory ........................... 31 

Children’s Television Community .............................................................. 33 

Industrial Organization Model ................................................................... 42 

Analytical Framework for Dissertation ...................................................... 49 

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CHAPTER 3: CHILDREN’S TELEVISION OVERVIEW ....................................... 53 

Global Perspectives on Children’s Television Diversity ............................. 55 

Types of Broadcasting Systems ................................................................... 63 

Children’s Television Industry in the United Kingdom ............................. 66 

Structure of the Children’s Television Industry in the U.K ........................ 67 

Funding Children’s Television in the UK ....................................................71 

Children’s Television Industry in the United States .................................. 73 

Structure of Children’s Television in the United States ............................. 79 

Funding Children’s Television in the United States ...................................80 

CHAPTER 4: GHANA’S BROADCASTING SYSTEM ............................................ 84 

Introduction to Ghana ................................................................................ 84 

Broadcasting System in Ghana ................................................................... 85 

Historical Overview of Broadcasting in Ghana .......................................... 86 

Commercial Broadcasting ........................................................................... 92 

Role of Broadcasting ................................................................................... 93 

Historical Overview of Children’s Television Programming ...................... 97 

CHAPTER 5: RESEARCH METHODS ................................................................ 102 

Content Analysis ....................................................................................... 103 

Sampling.................................................................................................... 105 

Coding Categories ..................................................................................... 107 

In-depth Interviews .................................................................................. 109 

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CHAPTER 6: CHILDREN TELEVISION DIVERSITY ......................................... 112 

Children’s Television Community in Ghana .............................................. 112 

Children’s Television Market Structure in Ghana ..................................... 116 

Quantity of Children’s Programming ........................................................ 119 

Imported and Locally Produced Children’s Programs ..............................127 

Formats ..................................................................................................... 135 

Educational and Entertainment Content ................................................. 139 

Audience Segmentation ............................................................................ 143 

Program Scheduling .................................................................................. 148 

Locally Produced Programs ...................................................................... 152 

CHAPTER 7: CHILDREN’S TELEVISION STAKEHOLDERS IN GHANA ........ 158 

Influence of Market Structure on Conduct of Content Programmers ..... 158 

Influence of Market Structure on Conduct of Content Creators .............. 163 

Media Policy, Advocacy and Children’s Television Programs ................. 170 

Activities and Strategies of Nonprofit Organizations ................................ 177 

CHAPTER 8: DISCUSSION .................................................................................. 181 

Children’s Program Diversity .................................................................... 181 

Animation.................................................................................................. 185 

Market Structure ....................................................................................... 187 

Market Influence on Conduct ................................................................... 189 

Conduct of Content Creators ..................................................................... 191 

Non-Profit and Public Sector Influence ................................................... 193 

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 Evaluation of Analytical Framework ........................................................ 194 

Recommendations .................................................................................... 195 

CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 198 

REFERENCES ......................................................................................................206 

APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS .......................................................... 223 

APPENDIX B: LIST OF PARTICIPANTS FOR INTERVIEWS ........................... 226 

APPENDIX C : CODING SHEET ......................................................................... 227 

APPENDIX D: CODE BOOK................................................................................ 229 

APPENDIX E: LIST OF TELEVISION SHOWS .................................................. 231 

APPENDIX F: OHIO UNIVERSITY CONSENT FORM ...................................... 236 

APPENDIX G: CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD ................... 238 

APPENDIX H: AFRICAN CHARTER ON CHILDREN’S BROADCASTING ......240 

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 LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1. CONSTRUCTED COMPOSITE YEAR OF SAMPLED TELEVISION BROADCAST

SCHEDULES FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004.......................................................... 107 

TABLE 2. NUMBER OF HOURS PER YEAR SCHEDULED FOR CHILDREN’S TELEVISION

PROGRAMS BY GTV, METRO TV, AND TV3 AS A PROPORTION OF EACH STATION’S

TOTAL YEARLY TRANSMISSION SCHEDULE FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004. ............. 125 

TABLE 3. TOTAL NUMBER OF UNIQUE TITLES OF IMPORTED AND LOCALLY PRODUCED

CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS LISTED IN BROADCAST SCHEDULES OF EACH STATION FOR

THE 2001 THROUGH 2004 PERIOD STUDIED ..................................................... 128 

TABLE 4. NUMBER OF HOURS SCHEDULED FOR IMPORTED AND LOCALLY PRODUCED

CHILDREN’S TELEVISION PROGRAMS BY GTV, METRO TV, AND TV3 FROM 2001

THROUGH 2004 .............................................................................................. 133 

TABLE 5. TOTAL NUMBER OF UNIQUE TITLES OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF CHILDREN’S

TELEVISION PROGRAMS LISTED IN BROADCAST SCHEDULES OF GTV, METRO TV,

AND TV3 FOR THE 2001 THROUGH 2004 PERIOD STUDIED ............................... 136 

TABLE 6. NUMBER OF HOURS ALLOCATED YEARLY TO DIFFERENT TYPES OF CHILDREN’S

TELEVISION PROGRAMS BY GTV, METRO TV, AND TV3 FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004

....................................................................................................................... 139 

TABLE 7. NUMBER OF UNIQUE PROGRAM TITLES AND PROGRAMMING HOURS OF

EDUCATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT CHILDREN’S TELEVISION PROGRAMS

SCHEDULED BY GTV, METRO TV, AND TV3 FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004 .......... 142 

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TABLE 8. NUMBER OF HOURS OF SCHEDULED CHILDREN’S TELEVISION PROGRAMS

TARGETING DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS BY GTV, METRO TV, AND TV3 FROM 2001

THROUGH 2004 .............................................................................................. 146 

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 LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 1. THE CHILDREN'S TELEVISION COMMUNITY (BRYANT, 2007). ...................... 36 

FIGURE 2. INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION MODEL (MODIFIED FROM SCHERER, 1980, 1990;

ALBARRAN, 2002)............................................................................................. 45 

FIGURE 3. POPULATIONS WITHIN BRYANT’S CHILDREN’S TELEVISION COMMUNITY

OVERLAYING MARKET STRUCTURE OF CHILDREN’S TELEVISION INDUSTRY. ........... 46 

FIGURE 4. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYZING CHILDREN’S TELEVISION

DIVERSITY ADAPTED FROM SCHERER & ROSS (1990) AND BRYANT (2007). ......... 50 

FIGURE 5. NUMBER OF UNIQUE TITLES OF CHILDREN’S TELEVISION PROGRAMS

SCHEDULED BY GTV, METRO TV AND TV3 FROM 2001-2004.. ........................ 122 

FIGURE 6. TOTAL NUMBER OF UNIQUE TITLES OF LOCALLY PRODUCED AND IMPORTED

CHILDREN’S TELEVISION PROGRAMS SCHEDULED EACH YEAR BY (ALL THREE

STATIONS) GTV, METRO TV, AND TV3 FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004. ................ 130 

FIGURE 7. NUMBER OF HOURS ASSIGNED TO LOCALLY PRODUCED AND IMPORTED

CHILDREN’S TELEVISION PROGRAMS YEARLY BY (ALL THREE STATIONS) GTV,

METRO TV, AND TV3 FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004. ........................................... 131 

FIGURE 8. YEARLY CHANGES IN THE PROPORTION OF TIME ALLOCATED TO DIFFERENT

TYPES OF CHILDREN’S TELEVISION PROGRAMS BY (ALL THREE STATIONS) GTV,

METRO TV, AND TV3 FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004 ............................................137 

FIGURE 9. PROPORTION OF TIME OF SCHEDULED CHILDREN’S TELEVISION PROGRAMS ON

DIFFERENT DAYS OF THE WEEK BY (ALL THREE STATIONS) GTV, METRO TV, AND

TV3 FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004. ................................................................... 149 

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FIGURE 10. PROPORTION OF TIME OF SCHEDULED CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS DURING

DIFFERENT TIMES SLOTS OF THE DAY BY (ALL THREE STATIONS) GTV, METRO TV,

AND TV3 EACH YEAR FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004. ............................................ 151 

FIGURE 11. PROPORTION OF TIME OF SCHEDULED CHILDREN’S TELEVISION FORMATS OF

LOCALLY PRODUCED CHILDREN’S TELEVISION PROGRAMS BY (ALL THREE STATIONS)

GTV, METRO TV, AND TV3 EACH YEAR FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004. ............... 154 

FIGURE 12. PROPORTION OF TIME OF SCHEDULED LOCALLY PRODUCED CHILDREN’S

PROGRAMS WITH EDUCATIONAL OR ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT BY (ALL THREE

STATIONS) GTV, METRO TV, AND TV3 EACH YEAR FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004. .....

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………155 

FIGURE 13. PROPORTION OF TIME OF SCHEDULED LOCALLY PRODUCED CHILDREN’S

TELEVISION PROGRAMS FOR DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS BY (ALL THREE STATIONS)

GTV, METRO TV, AND TV3 EACH FROM 2001 THROUGH 2004 .......................... 157 

xvii
 INTRODUCTION

The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this

right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart

information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers,

either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or

through any other media of the child’s choice.

States Parties recognize the important function performed

by the mass media and shall ensure that the child has access

to information and material from a diversity of national

and international sources, especially those aimed at the

promotion of his or her social, spiritual and moral well-

being and physical and mental health.

(Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989)

Children’s media in Ghana has shown an inconsistent development since

the introduction of broadcasting in the country during British colonialism

beginning in 1935. The reasons for the lack of consistent development are

multifaceted and complex and revolve around political, economic, social, and

regulatory factors. Central to this problem is the state of the media environment

and the role of governmental and nongovernmental agencies in promoting

policies that are favorable to the development of children’s media.

In a country where children and their needs are largely marginalized, it is

essential to advocate for strong policies that ensure diversity in media content
1
that meet the cognitive, social and developmental needs of children. The state

and structure of a country’s broadcasting system is an important determinant of

the nature of children’s media. A public-service broadcasting system seeks to

serve the interests of all minorities including children although the resources may

not always be available to do so successfully. On the other hand, a privatized or

commercialized broadcasting system creates opportunities for capital to flow in

from the private sector and is therefore a valuable option to explore.

However, serving the best interest of children is not always considered as a

commercially viable strategy by private media in many developing countries.

Some questions to consider are: What is the status and diversity of children’s

television in a developing country undergoing changes in its broadcasting system

and structure? How does a developing country provide quality and diversity of

children’s television content to its citizens in a changing media environment?

What are the ways in which non-governmental/non-profit, philanthropic and

advocacy organizations contribute to and support the provision of diverse

children’s television content?

This dissertation seeks to assess the diversity of children’s television in

Ghana and the impact of market structure and the conduct of industry players. It

also examines the role of governmental, advocacy and non-governmental

agencies in ensuring that broadcasting services consistently meet the needs of

children in Ghana. Children’s media is limited to television for this dissertation

because television is the dominant medium as far as children’s media

programming in Ghana is concerned.

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 The purpose of this dissertation, therefore, is to determine and evaluate

the state of children’s television programming in Ghana and the contributions

interested stakeholders make to provide diverse and quality children’s television

programming. With the challenges faced by public-service broadcasting around

the world and the move to media pluralism by many developing countries, this

dissertation seeks to provide an account of the different options and prospects of

children’s television programming. The dissertation also seeks to document the

involvement, contributions and strategies of government, non-governmental, and

advocacy organizations working in the area of children’s television.

These considerations outlined in the above lead to the research questions

underlying this work which will be explored later in Chapter Two. The

dissertation integrates multiple theories into an analytical framework namely

Weisbrod’s (1975, 1977) Market Failure Theory and Government Failure Theory,

Bryant’s (2007) Children’s Television Community, and Scherer and Ross’s (1990)

Industrial Organization Theory to answer the research questions.

Rationale and Significance of Dissertation

There has been a rapid increase in broadcasting services in Ghana over the

last 17 years. More licenses are being given for private commercial television

stations. In considering these media changes it is imperative that the needs of

children are not overlooked since they constitute a significant part of the media

audience. The government considers children as a special audience for whom the

media are expected to provide for. The media are expected to create media

content for children as well as create opportunities for children to engage in the
3
creative and production processes. The National Media Commission of Ghana

categorizes print, broadcasting and film media into three categories namely

public media, commercial media and community media (National Media

Commission, 1996). However, the constitution of Ghana places emphasis on the

fact that media for children should be considered as serving the public interest.

The status of the media as a public good meant to serve the public interest is one

of the perspectives of this dissertation.

The regulatory communications body in Ghana is the National

Communications Authority (NCA) and is responsible for regulating the

telephone, radio, television, and satellite industries. Audience research figures

from 1997 show that there are 1.9 million television sets in Ghana reaching about

half of the population of Ghana, which represents approximately 9.6 million

people according to the National Information and Communication Infrastructure

(1996). This makes television as a form of mass media an important one

especially in a developing country like Ghana. Television is important in Ghana

as a national tool for education and development and it serves the public interest

of children in this capacity.

In 2001, it was estimated that 41% of the population in Ghana was below

15 years of age (Ghanaweb, 2005). The number of children below 15 years will

remain steady through the next decade at about eight million each year

(Ghanaweb, 2005). One of the objectives of this dissertation is to investigate the

types and diversity of television programming targeted at children and to identify

4
stakeholders working to influence policy and regulation for promoting quality

programming for this segment of the population in Ghana.

The centrality of media in the lives of children in developed countries and

their potential effects has been well researched. However, very little research has

been done on what forms of media are available to children in developing

countries on the continent of Africa. Ghana is no exception when it comes to the

lack of research and documentation of children’s media access, use, and

participation von (Felitzen & Bucht, 2001). However, with the changes in the

media environment in Ghana, more children are gaining access to the media,

especially television, making this an ideal time for research.

As children spend more time watching television it is useful to know how

the medium is meeting their needs. This dissertation serves as a foundation for

further research into policy, regulation, and diversity for children’s television in

Ghana. It also serves as a children’s television research blue print or model for

other African and developing countries. For example the change from public

service monopoly to the introduction of private commercial stations within media

industries is often associated with the decline of public-service broadcasting.

One of the consequences of such a decline is the decrease in program

diversity targeting minority groups including children (Blumler & Biltereyst,

1997). By conducting this dissertation project, one is in a better position to

determine the validity of the above assertion in the context of the changes Ghana

has seen in its broadcasting industry with the change to media pluralism.

Additionally the activities of stakeholders in the children’s television community

5
such as nongovernmental or philanthropic organizations and advocacy groups as

agents for social change, advocating quality children’s media need to be studied.

The dynamic nature of the broadcasting system in Ghana and the growth

of the children’s television industry create an excellent opportunity for the

application of Weisbrod’s (1975, 1977) market and government failure theory,

Bryant’s (2007) children’s television community model, and Scherer and Ross’s

(1990) Industrial Organization theory to help facilitate an assessment of

children’s media diversity in a changing media environment that includes the

change from a state-owned public service monopoly to a competitive, commercial

and pluralistic broadcasting system.

Research Objectives

The goal of this dissertation is to understand how political and economic

factors influence the diversity of television content available to children. The

dissertation is therefore guided by the following objectives:

ƒ Identify the structure of the children’s television industry in Ghana and

its influence on the diversity of children’s television content.

ƒ Identify the impact of the conduct of children’s television programmers

and content creators on the diversity of children’s television in Ghana.

ƒ Explore the influence of the activities and strategies of the relevant

stakeholders on the diversity of children’s television programs in

Ghana.

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Research Questions

The objective of this dissertation is to examine children’s television in

Ghana as a way of understanding the political and economic factors that

influence the diversity of television content available to children. In order to

successfully accomplish these objectives the following research questions will be

examined:

RQ1. What is the nature of market concentration, product differentiation,

barriers to entry and cost structures in the children’s television industry in

Ghana?

RQ2. What is the quantity of children’s programs provided to children by

content programmers (television stations)?

RQ3. How does the conduct (product strategies) of children’s television

programmers affect the diversity of children’s television in Ghana?

RQ3a. What are the differences – in terms of format/genre, country of

production, educational content – in the quantity of children’s programs

provided to children by content programmers (television stations)?

RQ3b. What are the differences in the age groups targeted for programs by

content programmers (television stations)?

RQ3c. What are the differences in the scheduling strategies used by

content programmers (television stations) in scheduling children’s

programs?

RQ4. What are the differences in the children’s programs developed by content

creators in Ghana?

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RQ5. How does market structure influence the conduct of children’s television

content programmers and creators?

RQ6. How have advocacy groups influenced media policies and regulations in

Ghana and how has this affected the diversity of children’s television in

Ghana?

RQ7. Is children’s television considered a public/collective good in Ghana and

what is the role of nonprofits and charitable organizations in providing

children’s television in Ghana?

Research Format

In order to answer the research questions (discussed in chapter two)

guiding the dissertation a variety of research methods are used, including in-

depth interviews, review of archival documents, and content analysis as a process

of triangulation to ensure a holistic and more accurate assessment of the diversity

of children’s television in Ghana and the contributions made by various

stakeholders towards the growth and development of the industry. In-depth

interviews were conducted with stakeholders such as station managers and media

professionals to determine the level of program diversity they provided to

children; the policies that guided their stations regarding the broadcast of

children’s programs; and strategies and ways in which they catered to the needs

of children as a special audience. The leaders of governmental and

nongovernmental organizations with special interests in children and media were

interviewed to determine the contributions their organizations have made

towards children’s television programming; the strategies used and how

8
successful these strategies have been; and their future plans regarding children’s

television programming.

Archival materials such as memos, letters, and documents from

broadcasting stations, nongovernmental organizations, and government sources

were reviewed to gain data on the provision of children’s television programs and

to corroborate information gained from interviewees. A content analysis of

published program schedules of television stations was conducted to determine

the quantity and diversity of children’s television programs.

Definition of Terms

This section defines the key terms used in the dissertation and explains the

context in which these terms are used and applied throughout the different

sections. The definition is necessary because these are commonly used terms with

meanings that differ by context. The specified definitions will facilitate a clear

understanding of the results of this dissertation.

Children

Notions of childhood differ among different societies and cultures. The

definitions of children and childhood are generally considered as social

constructs influenced by social, historical, and cultural factors (Franklin, 2002).

Some scholars (Cox, 1996; James & Prout, 1997; Wyness, 2000) have explored

the sociological factors that influence the construction of the experience and

observation of childhood (Mayhall, 1994). From the sociological perspective,

childhood is a social institution consisting of “a negotiated set of social

relationships within which the early years of human life are constituted” (James
9
& Prout, 1997, p. 2). Many societies divide the life cycles of its members into

childhood and adulthood with special rites of passage marking the transition

from childhood to adulthood (Franklin, 2002).

The age of majority in many countries, including Ghana, is 18 where the

constitution formally recognizes the individual as an adult with additional rights

and responsibilities different from that of a child. The UN Convention on the

Rights of the Child also considers a child as a person below the age of 18. For this

research this general definition of a child was adopted. However, additional

terms were used to refer to the specific age groups. Toddlers refers to children

two years and younger; preschoolers include children between two and five years;

adolescents and middle schoolers refer to children between 9-12 years; with

children between the ages of 13 and 17 being referred to as teenagers.

Children’s programs

The dissertation examined the provision of children’s programs on

television. Determining what a children’s program is can be challenging. Turow

(1981) suggests two approaches to defining children’s programs, these are

audience-centered and production centered.

With the audience-centered approach, children’s programs are defined as

the programs children watch the most. In other words, programs that are popular

with children or that children spend most time watching would be considered as

a children’s program. The weakness with this definition of children’s program is

that this would include almost all programming on television. Children’s media

use, in some cases, is not limited to specific programs or specific time slots.

10
Children have been known to have a desire for adult programs or have actually

watched programs intended for adults when there is little adult supervision or

intervention. They also watch television during different time slots of the day

either on their own or with other family members. Thus, for the greater part of

the day there is a high likelihood of children being a part of the audience for

almost every program broadcast on television (Wilson, Smith, James, Kunkel,

Linz, Colvin & Donnerstein, 2002; Buckingham, Davis, Jones & Kelley, 1999)

For a more precise definition of children’s program, Turow (1981) suggests

the production-centered approach. With this approach the determination of a

children’s program depends on what the production studios or television

stations, produce or broadcast as intended specifically for children. According to

Wilson et al. (2002) “a television program is considered to be a children’s

program if it is originally produced and primarily intended for audiences of

children aged twelve and below” (p. 39).

It must be acknowledged that there is the possibility that what

programming executives call a children’s program may not be considered a

children’s program by parents and other interested parties. Related to the

production-centered approach, Buckingham, Davis, Jones and Kelley (1999)

define a children’s program as “any programme produced or commissioned by a

children’s department and/or one placed in scheduling periods set aside for

children, or on a dedicated children’s channel” (p.80). Buckingham, Davies,

Jones and Kelly (1999) adopted this definition from the Broadcasting Standards

Council report (Blumler, 1992).

11
 In this dissertation, children’s programs included programs produced by a

children’s department in a television station. However, in the case where the

station does not have a separate children’s department then they included

programs intentionally produced and/or broadcast for children as determined by

the programming executives at the station. Also included in this are programs

scheduled at time slots set aside for children; or on a dedicated children’s

channel. In other words any one of these characteristics or some combination of

the characteristics would qualify to be categorized as a children’s program.

Chapter Overview

Chapter one provides an overview of the state of the media in Africa,

focusing on challenges in the industry as a whole. It addresses the various

challenges within Africa’s media industry and their impact on the growth and

development of the industry at large and on children’s television specifically.

Chapter two of the dissertation explores the theoretical framework and

models for the assessment of children’s television content diversity in Ghana. The

theoretical frameworks also examine the relationships between the different

stakeholders involved in the process of providing children’s programs on

Ghanaian television. Three theories are identified and adapted for this purpose

and serve as a strong foundation for the dissertation.

Chapter three is a review of the literature focusing on two important

national models for children’s television, exploring who the different

stakeholders are, relationships they share with each other and how those

relationships have an impact on television for children. It also explores issues

12
such as funding and the market structure of these two well known national

models.

Chapter four focuses on Ghana’s broadcasting system and explores the

historical background of the system including its association with the United

Kingdom as a former colony. The chapter explores the impact of its colonial

foundations as reflected in the current media system. Other areas of focus in this

chapter include an exploration of commercial broadcasting in Ghana and the

change from a government monopoly to a private commercial system. It also

includes an overview of children’s programming on television in Ghana.

Chapter five describes the different methods used in obtaining and

analyzing the data from sources identified for the dissertation. Three distinct

methods were utilized in an attempt to obtain a more comprehensive data set and

information to facilitate a valid representation of the children’s television

industry in Ghana.

Chapter six presents the results of the data collected and analyzed

specifically those from the content analysis. The chapter focuses on the themes

highlighted by content analysis data and draws parallels between the different

television stations as well as their connections to the research questions.

Chapter seven interprets the results of the interviews and focuses on

themes as they relate to both the theoretical framework and research objectives

and the state of knowledge in the field with regards to the diversity of children’s

television.

13
 Chapter eight further interprets the results on the quantity and diversity of

children’s television programs in Ghana obtained from the content analysis of

published program schedules of the broadcasting stations. This chapter also

follows the analytical model developed in chapter two to evaluate the impact of

the theoretical framework based on the results of the interviews and content

analysis.

14
 CHAPTER 1: STATE OF CHILDREN’S MEDIA IN AFRICA

It is a common perception that the media play an important role in

promoting accountability by holding people in authority and leadership

responsible for their choices. The media also serve as instruments for mobilizing

people for change and development (AMDI, 2006). In fact in Africa the media

are indispensable as far as change and development are concerned. It is evident

that Africa’s media face serious and overwhelming challenges, including but not

limited to economic difficulties, disruption of service through political unrest,

lack of access, inadequate infrastructure and technology, lack of trained

personnel, and limited regulation and policy (Hawk, 1992; Bosah, 1992; AMDI,

2006).

In an increasingly global world where new technology, not nation states,

defines boundaries and frontiers, the right to information and access to media is

an essential resource for the inclusion of individual nations in the global village.

It is therefore imperative that the media in Africa equip themselves to become

integrated in the global media landscape with similar stakes as those of

developed countries and to be in a position to make decisions that positively

influence the media industry in Africa.

In recent years many have called attention to the strengthening of Africa’s

media arguing that the media are important tools for education and development

of Africa and its people. The 2006 African Media Development Initiative Report

states “fostering a stronger media in Africa is an indispensable part of tackling

poverty, improving development and enabling Africa to attain its development

15
goals” (p. 3). In their study of the state of the media in 17 sub Saharan African

countries, the African Media Development Initiative researchers found that the

media were going through very significant changes as a result of factors such as

positive and stable changes in government, globalization, economic stability and

growth, and the introduction and availability of new media technologies (AMDI,

2006). As much as Africa is saddled with overwhelming challenges, problems and

issues, the need to strengthen the media and accompanying technologies is

essential to its function.

Studies show that successful media organizations and systems around the

world invest significant amount of time and resources into research to develop

new efficient and effective technologies, program content and genres that appeal

to their target audiences. The African Media Development Initiative report

acknowledges there is a lack of robust research, on a continental scale,

demonstrating what is and is not working in the attempts by many players to

strengthen African media. Another constraining factor working against private

and public funding of the media is the lack of reliable information about media

industries in many Africa countries (Hassan & Cooper, 1992; AMDI, 2006).

The dominant media in most African countries is radio, which reaches

audiences predominantly in rural areas of the continent. Research shows that

state-owned radio stations consistently attract the largest number of audiences

but commercial radio stations are the fastest growing medium in most African

countries. However, as far as children’s content production is concerned,

16
television asserts itself as the dominant media for children’s programming and as

such, is the focus of this dissertation.

Issues such as geography, economic and political instability, foreign

imports, and apathy in media industries by investors as well as cultural and

linguistic barriers have hindered the growth of other forms of media including

television and film. The location of the continent of Africa and its reputation as a

less developed continent creates a barrier to local, foreign, public, and private

investors. Historical issues like colonialism and its impact on the development of

the continent and its resources have had serious setbacks and impact on media

advancements and development. Most African media systems were inherited

from the period of colonialism. The British broadcasting system has served as a

foundation for many African media systems including Ghana, Zambia, and

Nigeria among others.

It is, however, important to note that the media in Africa have gone

through significant growth and development as a result of continuing changes in

government and divestiture. Despite the fact that there are still continuing

conflicts in countries such as Sudan and new conflicts in countries like Kenya and

Zimbabwe, many countries have taken big and positive strides in the

development of their media industries. Countries like South Africa, Ghana,

Nigeria, Zambia have media industries that are worthy of reference as reputable

models for other countries in working on making improvements to their media.

Other important factors reflecting the growth and changes in the media include

globalization and the introduction and availability of new technologies.

17
Challenges of African Media

According to UNICEF (2006) television and radio play a tremendous and

critical role in shaping children’s lives. The Convention on the Rights of the Child

stresses the importance of children’s access to information and advocates for the

mass media to consider the best interest of children in their effort to program and

provide information and entertainment for young audiences. Additionally the

Convention states that the interests, opinions and participation of children

should be included in the mass media production processes (von Feilitzen and

Bucht, 2001).

As a result broadcasters are urged to advance the development of children

by engaging in productions and documentaries that draw attention to the plight

of children, and underscore the important role broadcasters can serve in

advancing children’s development by producing children’s programs that both

teach and entertain (UNICEF, 2006). For example, UNICEF’s International Day

of Broadcasting brought to light the efforts of broadcasters to promote children’s

rights and children’s participation in broadcasting and in the process also

promoted quality programs developed and created by children. However, the

challenges facing the media in Africa make it difficult for media organizations to

adhere to the calls for more opportunities for children’s participation and access

to media. Both public and commercial broadcasters face unique challenges in the

area of children’s television.

Like the children’s television industry in Ghana, the reasons for the slow

pace of media development in many African countries are multifaceted and

18
complicated involving political, economic, social and regulatory factors. The

children’s media industry in Africa is trailing in the global media context. The

growing development of new media such as satellite, computers, and the internet

as well as the record high profits going into media companies are predominantly

developed world centered (Williams 2003). Compared to the amount of research

in the field about children’s media in the United States, Australia, the United

Kingdom, and Europe, there is certainly a need for African children’s media

research to provide much needed information and documentation of media for

African children. The lack of development the media in Africa has experienced,

specifically in reference to children’s television, is quite surprising considering

the rapid growth of children’s media globally (Livingston, 1999).

In most of Africa the trend for decades was a media monopoly consisting

of a state owned public broadcasting service. The downside of a state-owned

media monopoly is that undemocratic governments and dictatorships can control

the media completely through censorship. The authoritarian nature of such

government-run media monopolies meant that the government controlled the

media completely. However, with privatization and structural adjustment

programs encouraged by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World

Bank for many African countries, broadcasting has moved into new territories

defined and labeled as pluralistic combining public-service broadcasting/state-

owned media with private owned/commercial broadcasting into a seamless

structure in many countries.

19
 The structure of public broadcasting requires adequate funding and

support from states and governments if the goal is to be successful in generating

quality programs and content for audiences, especially, for children. The

challenge for African states in this scenario is the limited financial resources

available to governments in African countries that are also burdened with

incredible economic challenges. As a result, governments in African countries do

not have access to enough financial resources to back and sustain the media in its

public-service role.

In addition, many African governments have initiated structural

adjustment programs as a way to obtain international assistance for their

countries. Such structural adjustment initiatives typically call for African

governments to divest some of their national industries such as the media

through privatization. The result is that governments can no longer mandate, or

become reluctant to mandate public-service broadcasting, when they no longer

support those media organizations. As a result public-service broadcasting suffers

extensive declines and reduction in content production for audiences including

children (Alhassan, 2005; Brinkerhoff, 2002).

Another challenge African media organizations face is the absence of a

vibrant market economy to support the growth and development of the media

industry. With the privatization of the media there is the need for market

support and demand in order to sustain the media. However, this is not the case

for the commercial media sector in most African countries. In order to survive

20
they tend to concentrate all of their resources on adult programming which leaves

children’s programming unattended to (AMDI, 2006).

Africa’s media also faces challenges with consistently poor representation

of the continent by the international media. Another major setback for the media

in Africa is setup, licensing, and equipment cost. Television for example is very

expensive to set up in many African countries. Equipment and running costs are

considerably more expensive compared to those for radio; as a result, television

diffusion in Africa is at a much slower pace compared to that of radio.

Furthermore individuals can afford to purchase a radio set much more easily

than they can a television set because of the differences in cost. Television sets

are high expenditure items for families in Africa. Presently television in Africa is

largely an urban phenomenon; many rural areas on the continent have little

access to the medium. Television is, however, an essential tool and component in

a growing media industry; as such, the slow growth of television in Africa is a

major concern especially when we talk about children’s television (Hawk, 1992).

Political instability is common in Africa and has been identified as a major

reason behind many economic, social, and developmental downturns in the

countries where such political conflicts exist. Research shows that political unrest

is closely related to lack of economic growth and can be argued as responsible for

the lack of development in the media as well. This is because government

instability drives away investors and slows down a country’s economic

development necessary to sustain a vibrant media. Consequently, political

21
instability could result in the lack of confidence leading to uncertainties in the

future (Alesina et al, 1992).

Consistency in media growth, development and expansion are associated

with countries with stable and democratic governments. Well developed and

strong economies result in well established media industries as a result of the

consistent political stability a country enjoys. The United States, the United

Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan and some other countries in Europe have

highly developed and multifaceted media industries and this can be attributed in

part to the long history of political stability they have enjoyed (von Felitzen &

Bucht, 2001; Goonasekera, 1998; Buckingham, 1999; Livingstone, 1998 & 2002)

Language and literacy also constitute challenges for the media in Africa.

Challenges such as low rates of literacy and multiple languages in many African

communities create a problem for the media. The continent of Africa has many

indigenous languages that differ from one ethnic group to another and from one

country to another along with foreign languages like French, English, German

and Portuguese. The challenge however, is which one of these languages does one

program in to attract mass audiences necessary to sustain a commercial media

industry or for audiences such as children. On a continent with limited resources,

challenges with language when it comes to media content are ones that the

continent could do without. Literacy which is closely connected to language is

another challenge for the media in Africa. Media organizations are faced with

challenges of being able to reach audiences with different levels of literacy skills

(Alesina et al, 1992; Alhassan, 2005; von Felitzen & Bucht, 2001).
22
 Media in Africa have been and continue to serve as a tool for nation

building. Nation building, in this case, includes creating a single identity for

people from these countries to prevent conflicts and unrest. However, nation

building in my opinion should also involve the development of the mass media

and technology that is accessible and available to children and youth because in

the current global state of the world it is an essential asset for growth and

development and the ability to compete at the global level.

In Africa the formal educational structure speaks to children’s cognitive

processes much like those of developed countries. On the other hand, the mass

media plays an important role in children’s informal learning especially with

increasing media access in more affluent and developed parts of the world.

Media programs also teach social skills, cultural identity and educate children

about current events. This access to media, education and information by

children in developed countries is well-documented (Lemish, 2007; Livingstone

2002). However, very little research has been done on African children and the

media.

Compared to children in developed countries, children in Africa constitute

a larger percentage of the population, yet what is known is that they have less

access to information, skills and equipment to create their own work for the

media. von Felitzen and Bucht (2001) reveal that children under the age of 18

constitute about 36% of the world’s total population. However, in developed

countries they constitute 22% of the population; while in developing countries

they constitute about 49% of the population. It is no secret that children in

23
developed countries have greater access, interest, and participation in the mass

media compared to children in developing countries. In developing countries

mass media for children is considered a luxury and, therefore, receives little to no

attention from governments, media practitioners, personnel and organizations.

These limitations are surprising considering the rapid growth of media

industries globally and the penetration of these corporations on a transnational

level. An increasing number of transnational and multinational media

conglomerates continue to enter developing countries and are influencing

programming for children. The entry of more companies into the market impacts

the creation and availability of local children’s programming in developing

countries and also influences the availability of foreign imports into the market.

In 2004 the BBC announced plans of launching a new international pay-

television channels for children with the hope of achieving the kind of success

Time Warner has with its Cartoon Network (Too much of a good thing 2004).

This world-wide expansion of western corporations means that African children

can have access to programs like SpongeBob and Sesame Street. Although these

programs represent a range from the educational (Sesame Street) to the merely

entertaining (SpongeBob), the argument here is on access not quality.

Children’s advocacy groups and professional organizations such as the

American Psychological Association believe that the mass media is an important

tool in the growth and development of children and children should be

considered as a special audience. On the other hand, children’s programming is

one of the growing businesses in the mass communications industry in the

24
United States and the United Kingdom. Networks and advertisers work hard to

attract children and teenagers to their programs, which have other lucrative links

in the form of merchandise such as toys, games, fast food, theme parks and video

games. In 1999 Business Week reported that children under the ages of 14 years

old spent $20 billion of their own money and in addition influenced their parents

and guardians to spend another $200 billion. The focus then is on attracting the

largest audience and considering children as consumers more than as a special

audience with special needs. In 1999, Rupert Murdoch bought the Family

Channel for about $2 billion, which he intended to use as a showcase for

children’s programs (Tristani, 1999).

In the United States the government put in measures to guarantee quality

programming for children. For example the 1996 Amendment to the Children’s

Television Act of 1990 mandated local broadcasters to show child-friendly

programs an average of three hours a week. The aim of this regulation was to

provide a minimum amount of educational and informational children’s

programs to benefit children’s growth and development. According to McCain

(2000), the FCC rules created, in effect, a new social compact between the

television industry and the public. In other words, television stations received

free use of the public airwaves in exchange for a commitment to serve the public

interest.

These programming requirements were carefully designed to balance

broadcasters' free speech rights with their obligation to serve the educational and

informational needs of children. These regulations, although on paper, do not

25
necessarily reflect the reality. While broadcasters are mandated to air an average

of three hours of quality television, cable casters are not held to this same

regulation; and both watch the bottom line more often than the social contract.

Consequently the programming offered for international distribution is more

often designed for an economic market rather than social and cultural benefits.

In Africa media policies promoting children’s interests are difficult to find. This

lack of policy can have an adverse effect on the quantity and quality of available

children’s programs.

As international markets expand, many African governments are

providing the political and economic frameworks for the establishment and

expansion of broadcast services in Africa. Countries like Ghana, Nigeria and

South Africa have agreed to the establishment of commercial broadcasting

stations to increase access to broadcasting services by their citizens. South

Africa’s public broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation and the

commercial satellite channel M-NET for example both provide children’s

programs. These include educational and entertainment programs on television

targeting children within and beyond the borders of South Africa.

As mentioned earlier, although researchers have examined the changing

children’s media environment in the UK, (Buckingham, 1999; Livingstone, 1998,

2002), the United States (Hendershot, 2002; Pecora, 1998; Turow, 1981), Europe

(Blumler & Biltereyst, 1997; Nikken 2003), and Australia (Aisbet, 2000) very

little research has been conducted in Africa. There is the need for research to

document and explain the impact of commercialization and globalization on the

26
diversity of children’s media in Africa. This is the opportune time for such

research when public-service broadcasting, a consistent provider of children’s

television content faces more challenges from commercial broadcasters.

On a continent where children’s issues are in the background, consistent

strategic advocacy is necessary to create policy that ensures that the media meets

the social and developmental needs of children. However, serving the best

interest of children is not always considered as commercially viable. As

mentioned earlier, children’s media focuses on television for the purposes of this

discussion because television is the dominant medium responsible for providing

children’s programming within the media industry in many Africa countries.

In the preface to her book titled Children’s television community, Bryant

(2007) argued that some of the challenges television content creators and

producers face in creating for children include accounting for children’s “special

cognitive, emotional, and developmental needs” which she argued changes or

should change the way in which programs for children are created and

distributed. Although Bryant’s book is written with the US children’s television

industry in mind, the challenges and special nature of children as television

audiences is a global concern and challenge.

In addition, media programs also teach social skills and cultural identity

and educate children about current events. This access to education and

information by children in developed countries is well-documented (Lemish,

2007; Livingstone 2002). Countries such as the United States, United Kingdom

and other developed countries have accomplished consistent and continuous

27
research on children’s media for decades. Research helps to identify the successes

and failures and provides a way to improve and make changes for the betterment

of our world. On the other hand, lack of research hinders knowledge, growth and

development. The significant strides the United Kingdom and United States

continue to achieve in the realm of children’s media are a result of the significant

amount of research and in-depth analysis of their respective media industries

including those targeted at children (Livingstone & Bovill, 1999; Buckingham,

2000; Pecora, 1998; Wasko, 2000)

As is the case for media for adult audiences, media diversity is a necessity

for all media sectors and industries including those for children. Diversity of

content, creators, and ownership to name a few are all critical in a media system.

As this dissertation shows in later chapters, such factors as the existence of

different stakeholders within the children’s television community and the market

structure of the media industry can influence the diversity of children’s television

in one way or another.

The state of a broadcasting system in a country is an important

determinant of the nature of its children’s media. While a public-service

broadcasting system may seek to serve the interests of all minorities including

children the resources may not always be available to do so successfully. On the

other hand, a privatized/commercialized broadcasting system opens the door for

capital to flow in from the private sector. Changes in the media and

communication industry in Ghana, including privatization and the involvement

of more stakeholders in the process, has created opportunities for growth and

28
variety in the choices children have when it comes to television content. This

dissertation examines children’s television in Ghana as a means to gain

understanding of the state of the industry in Ghana and bring this understanding

to bear on the state of children’s media in Africa.

29
 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The objective of this dissertation is to examine children’s television in

Ghana as a way of understanding the political and economic factors that

influence the diversity of television content available to children. For this

dissertation, children’s television diversity is defined in terms of ownership and

type diversity (Waterman, 2006). Ownership diversity incorporates content and

outlet ownership diversity and type diversity refers to the difference of program

content with regards to program type and format (Napoli, 1999). For this

dissertation children’s television diversity is determined by counting the number

of program producers and the number of separately owned media outlets in an

industry as well as assessing how different the available media content are in

terms of format and the targeted audience (Napoli, 1999; Waterman, 2006).

The availability of media content is related to the number of choices

available to a viewer (Grant, 1994). The choices of media content available is

made possible either through the variety of programming available on different

channels at a given time or the variety of programming scheduled by a specific

channel in a given time frame (Levin, 1971; Litman, 1979). These two options

relate to horizontal and vertical diversity respectively, with horizontal diversity,

measuring the number of choices available to a viewer at any given time and

vertical diversity measuring the differences in types of programs scheduled by a

particular channel (Grant, 1994; Levin, 1971; Litman, 1979; McQuail, 1992).

To analyze and explain the factors affecting children’s television diversity,

elements of three theoretical frameworks, namely government failure theory and

30
market failure theory by Weisbrod’s (1975, 1977); Bryant’s (2007) children’s

television community; and Industrial Organization Model (Scherer and Ross,

1990) have been adopted. Government failure theory and market failure theory

provide alternative structural frameworks for exploring the behavior of the

relevant stakeholders and their relationships to children’s television diversity.

The children’s television community framework introduces the various

populations and the role each of them play within this community in their efforts

to provide programming for children. The industrial organization theory is used

to explore the structural influences on the behavior and conduct of the

organizations within each population.

Government Failure Theory and Market Failure Theory

Writing in the tradition of classical economics, Weisbrod (1975, 1977)

describes how the government’s provision of public goods, determined by the

needs of the median voter, may lead to dissatisfaction among diverse segments of

the population. Due to the problem of “free-riding” certain public goods may

have to be provided by the government with financing through taxation. When

the government uses a majority vote as the voting mechanism to determine how

the service is provided, then it is very likely that the provision of the service will

correspond to the middle segment of preferences by voters for this service or the

preferences of what Weisbrod calls the “median voter” (Weisbrod, 1975; Young,

2001). This leads to a situation where some segments of the population may

receive less or more value from the public goods. Weisbrod (1975, 1977) also talks

about contract failure theory and nonprofit failure theory; however, for the
31
purposes of this dissertation I will only be focusing on government failure theory

and market failure theory.

Weisbrod (1975) argued that people who feel they are receiving less value

for the public good may move to other jurisdictions where they can receive a

higher value from the provision of the public service because their preferences

are more homogenous with that jurisdiction. There is also the option of turning

to private sources for the provision of the service to supplement what the

government is providing. However, there are instances in which moving or

turning to the private sector may not be viable options, thus creating the need for

voluntary organizations to step in to provide the service. Similarly, for market

failure theory, when the government does not have the resources to provide a

public service that satisfies the needs or preferences of a diverse population and

the private sector does not find it profitable to do so, voluntary/charitable

nonprofit organizations can fill the void where people who want more of the

public good can donate to a nonprofit or the nonprofit can raise funds to provide

the service on a private and voluntary basis.

However, even nonprofit organizations when they step in to fill the void

still do so specifically for the sections of the population not receiving a particular

public good or service. Minority groups especially children are easily

marginalized and as a result minority voices such as those of children for example

need additional assistance from nonprofit organizations.

It is important to note here that unlike Bryant’s (2007) children’s

television community model and Scherer and Ross’s (1990) Industrial

32
Organization model, government and market failure theories are not models, but

offer a theoretical framework.

There are many ways the provision of children’s television programs can

become the responsibility of nonprofits. Children are most times considered a

minority and their views and interests are not made a priority. Children are

underprovided for when it comes to television content and when the government

is unable to adequately meet this need (because it is providing for the “median

voter”) it becomes necessary for nonprofit organizations to step in to provide

children’s television. Children’s television in Ghana can be considered in the

context of providing a public service to a marginalized minority. This provides a

framework for examining the conditions and behavior of philanthropic

organizations in the children’s television community as it relates to the diversity

of children’s television content.

Children’s Television Community

In outlining factors that influence the diversity of television programs

targeted at and/or provided to children, it is important to identify the relevant

stakeholders in the children’s commercial television industry. While Bryant

(2007) apparently only addresses commercial broadcasting in her book, the

children’s community framework is also strong enough to be applied to public

service television for children. The stakeholders are the organizations that have

an interest and a stake in the different elements of children’s television

programming. In assessing children’s television as an end product of an

organizational process occurring within specific interrelated organizational

33
populations that create, distribute, support and defend programming for

children, Bryant (2007) lists the relevant organizational populations that make

up the children’s television community (in the United States). The populations,

defined and identified by their functions as they relate to children’s television

programming are entertainment content creators, educational content creators,

content programmers, advertisers, toy companies, governmental bodies,

advocacy and philanthropic organizations (see Figure 1).

Bryant (2007) examines the children’s television community at the

macrolevel acknowledging the social, economic and political environments that

influence children’s television programming. Based on this perspective,

community is defined in terms of “populations organized around a ‘core’ whether

it is technological, normative, functional or legal-regulatory” (Bryant, 2007,

p.38). For the children’s television community, the populations are organized

around the ‘core’ of children’s television programming. A population can be

compared to an industry and consists of all the organizations with comparable

form that compete for resources (Bryant, 2007). The term industry is used

interchangeably with population in this dissertation and industry player is used

to refer to an organization that belongs to a population or industry. On the basis

of the macrolevel perspective analysis which extends beyond the economic

environment, Bryant (2007) presents a static model that uses the functions of

creating, distributing, supporting and defending programming for children to

identify the populations within the children’s television community.

34
 According to Barron (1999) population refers to “all the organizations with

the same form that are competing for resources” while Bryant (2007) defines

populations as “a particular set of organizations that fulfill a similar function,

such as advertisers or advocacy groups. Each population, therefore, has its place

within the larger organizational community”. In Figure 1 below populations

appear to include only entertainment content creators, educational content

creators and content programmers, but in fact all eight bodies represented

within the children’s community environment constitute “populations”.

Content creators are organizations and individuals who create and

produce children’s television programs. Bryant (2007) makes a distinction

between entertainment and educational content creators because of the unique

resources available to each population as well as the difference in the nature of

their interactions with the other populations in the children’s television

community. Examples of entertainment content creators in the United States are

Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley the creators/writers for Kim Possible and

the Walt Disney Television Animation, the production company for Kim Possible

and producers of the Little Mermaid. Educational content creators include

organizations such as the Sesame Workshop (formerly known as the Children’s

Television Workshop), creators of Sesame Street, and Family Communications

Inc., the creators of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood to name a few.

Educational programs are based on formal educational curricula while

entertainment programs, though not explicitly educational, may include various

elements of informal education.

35
 
ENVIRONMENT
Populations
Entertainment
Content
Creators
Philanthropic Educational
Organizations Content
Creators

Advocacy CHILDREN’S TELEVISION Content

Groups Programmers
COMMUNITY

Governmental
Bodies Toy Companies

Advertisers

Figure 1. The children's television community (Bryant, 2007).

There is some overlap between educational and entertainment content

creators. There are production companies who produce both educational and

entertainment children’s television programs. This trend is becoming more

common with the recent privatization and integration within the media industry

globally. In other words production companies around the world are creating

36
both entertainment and educational content for children. In the past such

organizations focused on one area or the other but the apparent competition

within the children’s television industry along with other factors have contributed

to this change.

Content programmers according to Bryant’s (2007) children’s television

community framework consist of the broadcast and cable networks that program

children’s content and deliver them to audiences. For example ABC and FOX

networks, Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network in the United States; the

Children’s British Broadcasting Corporation (CBBC) in the UK; The South

African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and e.television in South Africa; and

Ghana Television (GTV), TV3 and Metro TV in Ghana. There are instances where

content programmers and content creators are owned by the same parent

company because of the economic advantages of vertical integration in the media

industry. For example children’s programs shown on the Disney channel and the

Disney owned ABC are often produced by Walt Disney Television and Walt

Disney Animation or are co-productions with other companies.

Advertisers buy airtime from broadcasters to place advertisements of their

company’s products and are a major source of revenue for broadcasters. The goal

of commercial broadcasting is to deliver an audience to advertisers who then pay

for this access to the audience. Advertisers who purchase airtime during a

children’s program usually promote products that are targeted to children. Food

and non-alcoholic beverage companies are the leading advertisers during

37
children’s programming timeslots (Kunkel and Gantz 1992; Kotz and Story 1994;

Byrd-Bredbenner 2002).

Toy companies manufacture products associated with characters in

children’s programs or promote children’s programs through direct sponsorship

using their toys as the main characters. In some cases they provide financial

support for children’s television programs by guaranteeing to purchase

advertising time when the programs are broadcast (Schmuckler, 1995 cited in

Alexander & Owens, 2007). Toy companies are big stakeholders in the children’s

television community because they contribute heavily to the sustenance of

commercial and public television for children and the consumption of these toy

products by children and their parents sustain the existence of toy companies.

Philanthropic and charitable organizations are also stakeholders in the

children’s television community who support children’s television programming

in many ways. In the United States they provide financial and other support such

as research for content creation and programming particularly through Sesame

Workshop and US public broadcasting. Examples of such organizations include

the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation (Bryant, 2007).

Governmental bodies do not only pass laws to regulate children’s

television. They also serve as enforcement agencies with powers to penalize

organizations that breach the policies and regulations guiding the provision of

children’s television. The size and activity of this population may vary by country.

The United States for example has separate bodies such as the Federal

Communications Commission (FCC) to ensure adherence to the regulations

38
regarding children’s television. This is different for a country with limited or non-

existing media regulations and as a result may not have the resources to sustain a

separate agency to enforce policy. Members of this population also include the

legislative branch of government (for example Congress in the US) as well as

countries with parliamentary democratic systems of governance.

Advocacy groups function to promote and defend children’s television.

They seek ways to improve children’s television by monitoring and evaluating the

quality of what is available. They also succeed by pressuring governmental

agencies and industry players to make positive changes. In the United States,

groups such as Action for Children’s Television, The Parent Teacher Association

and Common Sense Media have actively advocated for changes in media

regulations and practices to improve the quality of children’s television

programming. On the global stage, nongovernmental organizations such as the

UN and UNICEF advocate for quality children’s television for children.

Members of the children’s television community represent the relevant

organizations and industry players involved in all the important facets of

children’s television production and distribution as well as impact diversity

including content creation, broadcast, finance and regulation. The choices

content producers make directly affects diversity of the content available. If there

are no educational content creators there will be no educational programs for

broadcasters to provide to their audiences made up of children. There are adverse

impacts on diversity when broadcasters fail to provide educational content or

find no incentive in broadcasting educational programming for different age

39
groups. That is how financing and advertisers influence content diversity,

especially when broadcasters depend on advertising to support their

programming and program selection is based on attracting an audience for

advertisers.

Not-for-profit organizations can support the production of children’s

television programs when advertisers are not interested in that kind of program

content or the age group, for which the program is created. Finally, advocacy

groups can lobby for government regulations and policies that can positively

impact diversity of children’s programs. The activities of the different populations

represented in the children’s television community have direct and indirect

influence on the provision of children’s television programs.

Identifying the industry players who influence the provision of children’s

television programs is an important first step in the analysis of factors that have

an impact on the diversity of children’s television programs. Bryant’s (2007)

model presents the social economic and political structures of children television

programs. Another way then to distinguish the populations of the children’s

television community is whether they belong to market or non-market sectors

that influence children’s television programming. Populations who can exist

within the market sector are content creators, content programmers, advertisers,

and toy companies while populations belonging to the non-market sector are

advocacy groups, philanthropic organizations and governmental bodies. These

sectors are related and their interactions can have an impact on children’s

television programming. The advantage of distinguishing between populations

40
belonging to the market and non-market sectors is the ability to examine and

understand the specific activities and behaviors of stakeholders in the children’s

community that have an impact on the diversity of children’s television

programs.

In identifying the populations of the children’s television community,

Bryant’s (2007) model explains the functions of the various populations. The

main emphasis is placed on the relationships between the populations and how

shifts in the relationships affect the structure of the community over time. The

model however, does not underscore how the specific behaviors and strategies of

the organizations within each population influence the diversity of children’s

television. There are activities or behaviors of the industry players that could

influence children’s programs that Bryant’s (2007) discussion of the children’s

television community does not address. For instance, although competing ties

between the populations are examined, competition within each population is not

addressed. For example, how is diversity of children’s programs affected when

there are many content providers competing for few broadcasters or advertisers?

Another question to consider is what happens to children’s television

programming when there is just one broadcaster and no advocacy groups or clear

regulations concerning children’s television programs? These questions address

the market and non-market (advocacy and policy-making) behaviors of

organizations that make up the children’s television community.

With Bryant’s model serving as a static model identifying the market

structure of the children’s television industry one can utilize the Industrial

41
Organization model (Busterna, 1988; Scherer, 1980) as a theoretical framework

to identify and gain a better understanding of the behaviors and strategies

adopted by industry players of the children’s community that are most likely to

influence the diversity of children’s television programs.

Industrial Organization Model

The Industrial Organization Model (IOM) provides a way of

understanding the activities of the populations within the children’s television

community in economic terms as actors in a market or industry. Furthermore,

the interaction of national level factors has been shown to be an important

influence on the development of media industries (Albarran, 1996). The IOM

takes into account the political and economic factors that impact an industry,

making possible a macro-level analysis of an industry and its sectors. This model

examines how the structure of the industry and the behavior of the firms within it

affect their performance.

The IOM provides an appropriate framework for research and analysis of

the subject matter for this dissertation. Media economics researchers

acknowledge the utility of IOM for media studies and have encouraged its use

(Ramstad, 1997). Researchers have argued that the use of industrial organization

theory is important for studying the media because it provides researchers the

opportunity to conduct more in-depth studies of media organizations which in

turn can move the academic discussion beyond issues of ownership to other areas

of the media organizational structure (Busterna, 1989; Gomery, 1993; Wirth &

Bloch, 1995). In addition, the use of Industrial Organization Theory creates a

42
basis for researchers to evaluate choices made by governments concerning, but

not limited to, policy and regulation. Governments also stand to benefit from the

study of media organizations using an Industrial Organization Model because it

provides them with a strong basis to make better and informed decisions

concerning media organizations.

The IOM has been adopted and adapted for a number of media analysis

studies. Wirth & Bloch (1995) argue for the use of industrial organization model

stating that if used accurately the model can aid in providing explanations for

strategic behaviors and actions of media organizations. Oba and Chan-Olmsted,

(2005) recently adopted the IOM in their analysis of the development of the cable

industry in East Asia. The causal relationship between market structure, industry

conduct and performance formed the core of their analytical framework for cable

development. However, the framework also included an examination of the

causal influence of environmental factors such as national economic factors,

regulatory/policy factors, technological factors, and consumer factors on the

cable industry characteristics of structure, conduct and performance. The IOM

has been used as a theoretical framework to examine the diversity of program

content for different media such as cable programming (Bae, 1999) and television

programming (Wurff & Cuilenburg, 2000). These studies examine how market

structure and conduct affect the diversity of program content available within a

market.

The IOM as presented by Scherer (1980) demonstrates the relationship

between market structure, conduct, and performance with structure influencing

43
conduct, and conduct influencing performance in that order. The model is used

also to explain the impact of market forces on activities of the market (Busterna,

1988). The core of the IOM explains the causal relationship between three

concepts in the examination of an industry. These are market structure, industry

conduct, and industry performance (Albarran, 2002; Chan-Olmsted, 1997; Chan-

Olmsted & Albarran, 1998; Scherer, 1980; Scherer & Ross, 1990).

The market structure consists of the number of sellers and buyers, product

differentiation, barriers to entry, cost structures and vertical integration

(Albarran, 2002; Scherer & Ross, 1990). In examining the conduct or behavior of

firms in an industry, the IOM examines how the market structure affects

activities such as pricing behavior, product strategy, advertising, and research or

innovation (Albarran, 2002; Scherer & Ross, 1990). Finally, the performance

outcomes that are impacted by market structure and industry performance

include production and allocative efficiency, progress and equity (Albarran,

2002; Scherer & Ross, 1990). See Figure 2.

44
 Market Structure
Number of sellers/buyers
Product differentiation
Barriers to entry
Cost structures
Vertical integration Public Policy
Regulation
Taxes and subsidies
International trade rules
Conduct
Pricing behavior
Product
strategy/advertising
Research and innovation
Plant investment
Legal tactics

Performance
Product efficiency
Allocative efficiency
Progress
Equity

Figure 2. Industrial organization model (Modified from Scherer, 1980, 1990;

Albarran, 2002)

The first condition relating to the structure of the industry that can

influence diversity of content are the number of sellers and buyers in the market

(Napoli, 1999; Wirth & Bloch, 1997) in terms of whether it is a monopoly,

oligopoly or perfect competition (Aslama, Hellman & Sauri, 2004; Litman, 1992;

van der Wurff & van Cuilenberg, 2001). With Bryant’s children’s television

community serving as a static model of the children’s television industry

45
structure one can address the issue of competition in the children’s television

industry by examining the number of organizations that exist within each

population (see Figure 3).

MARKET STRUCTURE

Number of Number of Number of

Entertainment Private Public
Content Content Content
Creators Programmers Programmers

Number of
Educational Number of
Content Advertisers
Creators
Differentiated Industry Players in
Children’s Television Community

Figure 3. Populations within Bryant’s children’s television community overlaying

market structure of children’s television industry.

The competitive relations between the organizations within a population

could be perfect competition, oligopoly or a monopoly. Few content programmers

in the market (or within that population) can result in an oligopoly while having

one broadcaster that is also the content creator as was the case with national

public broadcasters in many developing countries, can lead to a monopoly. The

populations within the children’s television community can also be identified in

terms of buyers and sellers in the market. Content creators can generally be

described as sellers offering programs to content programmers. Content

46
programmers either sell audiences to advertisers, in the case of advertising

supported commercial stations, or ‘sell’ programs (as public broadcasters) to

viewers who may have paid for it through taxes or license fees.

The second market condition that can affect content diversity is product

differentiation. Product differentiation occurs within a market when, due to

“differences in physical attributes, ancillary service, geographic location,

information, and/or subjective image, one firm’s products are clearly preferred

by at least some buyers over rival products at a given price” (Scherer & Ross,

1990, p. 17). An advantage of successful product differentiation by a company is

that it can lead to brand loyalty and thereby protect the company from losing its

competitive edge among competing firms. For the children’s television industry

product differentiation can occur with dedicated children’s channels and with

television stations that broadcast blocks of children’s programs. In all of these

examples it is important to note that the image a station seeks to project can

influence decisions about the types of content they broadcast (Nikken, 2003;

Wartella, 1994). For instance a station may seek to portray an image of public

service and social responsibility and this can influence its choice of content and

target audience. Therefore one way in which a television station or children’s

channel can achieve product differentiation is through its public service or

commercial orientation.

Stations that have a public service orientation tend to broadcast programs

high in social value and may treat children as a special audience while stations

with a commercial orientation tend to treat children as consumers and provide

47
programs that have high commercial value. Public (in terms of ownership)

content programmers tend to be more public service oriented while private (in

terms of ownership) content programmers tend to be more commercially

oriented. A similar distinction can be made between content creators with

product differentiation occurring with educational content or entertainment

content. The Sesame Workshop for example has distinguished itself as producers

of quality research-informed educational children’s programs with millions of

loyal viewers worldwide.

Barriers to entry and cost structures can have an impact on the diversity of

children’s television content by directly influencing the competitive behavior of

content programmers in the market (van der Wurff & van Cuilenberg, 2001). In

terms of the conduct of the stakeholders in the children’s community this

dissertation examined the product strategies of content creators and content

programmers. Measures of product strategies for content programmers include

programming strategies such as audience segmentation strategies, scheduling,

program sources – local or imported programming as well as choice of

entertainment or educational programs. Measures for content creators include

program format, audience segmentation, and type of content – entertainment or

educational content. The IO model draws attention to the role of public policy on

market structure and conduct. It is within this context that the activities of

advocacy groups and governmental bodies, in terms of regulation, are examined.

The IO model as adapted for this dissertation examined how market

structure affects the conduct of firms in the children’s television industry. The

48
adapted framework also includes an examination of the causal influences of

government regulations and advocacy groups on market structure and conduct of

industry players in the children’s television industry. Diversity of children’s

television programs can be assessed at the level of market structure in terms of

number of sellers and buyers (market concentration) and product differentiation

as well as in terms of the conduct of stakeholders by examining their product

strategies.

Analytical Framework for Dissertation

By examining the behavior of the stakeholders identified by Bryant’s

(2007) children’s television community, within the context of the IO model, and

market failure theory and government failure theory this dissertation develops an

analytical framework for studying the content diversity of children’s television

programs in Ghana (Figure 4). The relevant concepts to children’s television

diversity in Ghana within this framework are:

1. The children’s television market structure which includes the number

of content creators and programmers, product differentiation, barriers

to entry and cost structures.

2. The conduct of stakeholders in the industry specifically, product and

programming strategies.

3. The role and activities of government and regulatory bodies, advocacy

groups, philanthropic, non-profit and nongovernmental organizations.

49
 MARKET

Number of Number of Number of

Entertainme Private Public
nt Content Content Content
Creators Programme Programme
rs rs
Number of
Educationa Number of
l Content Advertisers
Creators
Differentiated Industry Players
in Children’s Television
Community

Diversity of
Children’s
Television Programs
CONDUCT POLICY &
Product Strategy Regulatory Institutions
- Program scheduling Advocacy groups
- Audience
segmentation

Figure 4. Conceptual framework for analyzing Children’s Television Diversity

adapted from Scherer & Ross (1990) and Bryant (2007).

The adapted theoretical model acknowledges content creators/producers,

content programmers (media outlets) and advertisers as significant players in the

children’s television market. The product differentiation of content creators and

content programmers influences the product strategies of these industry players.

Measures of product differentiation of content creators include whether they

specialize in educational or entertainment children’s programs or the social value

of the content they produce. Product differentiation of content programmers

50
includes the type of broadcasting service they provide – public, commercial or

both. Another measure of product differentiation for content programmers is

whether they broadcast programs with local or foreign origination Scherer & Ross

(1990) and Bryant (2007).

The product strategies of two key industry players – content creators and

programmers are presented as an important determinant of children’s television

diversity by the analytical framework adopted for this dissertation. Product

strategies by content creators can include sources of financing for producing

children’s programs and as a related outcome the development of programs with

toy or other product tie-ins. For content programmers or media outlets, product

strategies include audience segmentation and broadcast scheduling of children’s

programs.

Policy and regulation can directly or indirectly affect the market structure

and conduct of players in the children’s television industry. Important

organizations in the policy arena include governmental and regulatory

institutions and advocacy groups. The activities of these organizations shape

policies that can indirectly affect the diversity of children’s television.

It is important to mention the fact that though children’s television in

many countries is a commercial activity it is also considered as a public or

collective good. Allen (2001) argued that from an economic perspective “video

products demonstrate the properties of both private and public goods. Television

programs are a public good because the viewers who consume them do not

diminish their availability to potential viewers” (Allen, 2001, p. 478).

51
Furthermore, as with free-to-air broadcast in general children’s programs

provided by the broadcast stations are such that it is impossible to exclude

anyone with a television within the broadcast coverage area from watching the

programs.

Content diversity of children’s programs is affected if and when children’s

programming is considered as a public good. With such a goal the focus cannot

be on the for-profit market sector alone but must include the government and

non-profit sectors as well since they play an essential role in the provision of

public goods. Market and Government failure theories specify the conditions by

which nonprofits are involved in the provision of public goods (Steinberg, 2006,

Weisbrod, 1975, 1977, 1988; Young, 2000, 2001).

The children’s community in Ghana is comprised of educational content

creators, entertainment content creators, governmental bodies, philanthropic,

nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, advocacy groups and advertisers.

The community at this point does not include toy makers because toys in Ghana

are predominantly imported into the country, additionally there are currently no

clear connections or relationships between toy makers and television programs

for children. The involvement of toy makers in the creation and production of

children’s program is not yet a reality in Ghana. However, that is not to speculate

that it may not in the near future. Like Bryant’s (2007) children’s television

community, the members listed above do interact and have varied relationships

amongst themselves, which was explored in the results and analysis section of the

dissertation.

52
 CHAPTER 3: CHILDREN’S TELEVISION OVERVIEW

Research speaks to television becoming an integral part of children’s daily

activities and a significant part of their leisure time away from school and other

extracurricular activities. Livingstone and Bovill (1999), in their nationwide

television study of the United Kingdom, found that television was the most

popular medium used by children during their time of leisure where they spent

an average of 147 minutes a day watching television.

Studies also show that US children watch television an average of 3 hours

a day by more than 80% of children audiences. The Kaiser Family Foundation

study in 2005 found that “media are developing more resources (time, money,

research, attention) to producing content explicitly targeting children and

adolescents than ever before. Indeed, entire TV networks are now dedicated to

young audiences”.

According to Davies (2001) children accept television as a naturalized part

of their world as a result; children’s opinions are sought by stakeholders in the

industry. Stakeholders such as toy makers, advertisers and content creators in the

media industry understand the role children play in the success of their products

and the content they create for children and do not hesitate to seek input from

children to enhance their products, in this case television content.

Gerbner, Gross, Morgan and Signorielli (1994) argued that television is the

mainstream of the common symbolic environment into which children are born

and in which people live out their lives. They argued that television viewing both

shapes and constitute a stable part of life styles and outlook. Additionally

53
broadcasting, information and media technologies continue to be important

driving forces in today’s world. Similarly the formal educational structures in

many countries around the world speak to children’s cognitive processes while

the mass media increasingly plays an important role in children’s informal

learning about the world. In such countries as the United States, the United

Kingdom, Japan and Australia media content are created to teach school-based

curriculum on the Internet and on television. Other programs offer social skills

and cultural identity and educate children about current events and things about

their communities.

Broadcasters continue to contribute to the advancement of children’s

development by producing children’s programs that both teach and entertain. As

a matter of fact the changes in the children’s media environment in the last two

decades are a reflection and a consequence of changing global media trends.

However, in order for children from developing countries in Africa, Latin

America and Asia to be on an even or a similar level playing field as children from

developed countries as far as access to knowledge, intellectual growth,

development and media/information they need to be a part of the global

children’s media community. In the last twenty years media industries around

the world have gone through outstanding growth and changes which as a result

has led to the mass media reaching and including more audiences than ever

before. Carlsson (1997) states concerning the media:

A new media landscape and a new media order are emerging. Media

cultures are changing in both the public and the private sphere.

54
 Information flows ever so more freely, and with ever looser ties to time

and place. The volume of information conveyed via new media technology

continues to expand, while the distinctions between computers, television,

radio, the press, books and telephony gradually dissolve. Media culture

today is intensive (p. 11)

But the media landscape in the world is clearly uneven. The 1990s saw a

large influx of television sets all over the world along with accompanying

increases in satellite channels. Studies show that in 1997 seven out of ten

households reported owning a television set which estimates a one hundred

percent increase in the number of channels and television sets. In addition there

were satellite channel penetration to all countries with television access, which

created opportunities for content creation for marginal audiences like children

and youth. However, most of these increases and improvements are

concentrated in mostly developed and wealthy countries such as the United

States, Britain, France, Australia and Japan (Lamb 1997). This supports the

argument of an uneven media landscape where many developing countries find

themselves on the lesser end of the spectrum with little access and fewer

opportunities.

Global Perspectives on Children’s Television Diversity

The children’s television industry around the world has come to establish

itself as one of the most important components of world media especially in the

last three decades and especially in the United States, the United Kingdom,

Australia and other parts of Europe and Japan. Children’s television has enjoyed
55
a very strong history especially in Europe with BBC’s early commitment to the

children’s media industry. In the United States, attempts to improve the quality

of children’s television are reflected in the 1990 Children’s Television Act. In

addition the United States in the last fifteen years has taken significant strides in

the children’s television industry with the growth of cable network competition

for the child audience. The growth of the children’s television industry in the

United States is also reflected by the availability of twenty-four-hour children’s

programming on television and dedicated channels such as Noggin and Cartoon

Network.

In the beginning of the year 2000 there was a remarkable improvement in

the quality and diversity of children’s programs on commercial television in

Australia (Twenty Years of Children’s Television, 2000). Children’s television

programming is now identified as a lucrative media venture in the global and

international media organizations from developed countries and as a result has

been exploited by media conglomerates. The global media market is one that has

gradually moved from a public service charged with providing program diversity,

educational content and universal access for children to one driven by market

forces and profit. In the United States and Britain for example the children’s

television industry (especially in the US) are considered big business and money-

making ventures, especially in recent years and have set the standard for others

in Asia, Latin America and Africa to emulate (Kline, 1993 Buckingham, 2000;

Pecora, 1998; Wasko, 2000; Alexander & Owers, 2007).

56
 The extensive diffusion of television has impacted the provision of

children’s television programs. Research shows that about fifty local, national,

and international television channels targeting children were launched in the late

1990s. According to a 2006 children’s television report from the Office of

Communications (Ofcom) in the United Kingdom, dedicated children’s channels

like Boomerang, Disney channel, Playhouse Disney and Nickelodeon are

available in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, Australia and the

United States of America. Cartoon Network is available in the United Kingdom,

France, Sweden, Australia and the United States while other channels for

children like Jetix can be found in the United Kingdom, France, Germany,

Sweden and the United States with Toon Disney in all of the countries except the

United Kingdom (Ofcom, 2007).

In the United Kingdom other dedicated children’s channels include

Children’s Independent Television (CiTV), Cartoon Network TOO (CN Too),

Discovery Kids, Disney Cinemagic, Nick Jr. 2, Pop TV, Tiny Pop, Toonami,

Children’s British Broadcasting Corporation (CBBC) and CBeebies. Children’s

dedicated commercial television channels in France include Canal, Eurêka! Filles

TV, Ma Planete, Mangas, Piwi, Télétoon, TFOU, Tiji and Gulli. The United

Kingdom’s dedication to public-service broadcasting is reflected in the decision

for four public service stations namely BBC1, BBC2, CBeebies and CBBC

providing children’s content. In Germany children’s channels include Junior TV,

Super RTL and Kinderkanal. In Canada children’s dedicated channels include

British Broadcasting Kids (BBC Kid’s), Télétoon, Discovery Kids, The Family

57
Channel, Treehouse TV, VRAK TV and the Youth television (YTV). The dedicated

children’s television channels in the United States include Disney, Discovery

Kids, Funimation Channel, HBO Family, Nick , Noggin, The N, Nick GAS, Starz

Kids and Family, Tickle U, PBS Kids and Sprout. The United States’ commercial

television channels include Disney channel, Nickelodeon, Toon Disney, Noggin,

Nicktoons, Discovery Kid, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, ABC Family. Public-

service broadcasting channels in the United States include Sprout, PBS kids and

PBS (Direct Digital TV n.d.).

The 2004 report from the 4th World Summit on Media for Children and

Adolescents in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil emphasized the belief that television has

established itself as a dominant medium in the lives of children and people

around the world. In addition there are significant increases in the number of

television sets, the amount of viewing time and the number of available channels

and are all estimated to have doubled within the period between the mid 1980s

and mid 1990s. In a recent survey of school-age children around the world who

have access to television, the amount of time spent watching television ranged

from 1.5 hours to more than four hours daily (Gigli, 2004). Although the

proliferation of children’s channels has increased the number of children’s

programs, the downside has been a reduction in locally produced children’s

programs, specifically public service programs in some cases by national

television services in many countries around the world. In the United Kingdom

for example the number of programming hours on major public-service

broadcasting channels declined from 22% in 1998 to 4% in 2006 (Ofcom, 2007)

58
 With the aid of globalization many developing countries on the continent

of Africa and Latin America continue to import and receive programming from

countries around the world. Animated television shows are especially popular for

exporting because they lend themselves more easily to dubbing. A review of

children’s programming trends around the world by von Feilitzen and Bucht

(2001) demonstrated a disproportionate distribution of children’s television

programs worldwide. Developing countries in Africa and Asia have fewer

children’s programs compared to developed countries in North America, Europe

and some parts of Asia. In most African countries children’s television

programming and content received the least amount of attention when it came to

funding, personnel and even equipment support because children’s television is

not considered as one of the pressing needs of children. Broadcasting in Africa,

including television, is typically urban centered; and children in most African

countries, especially in rural areas, have little to no access to television

programming, some of which can be attributed to lack of technology and in some

cases to language barriers. African media personnel have also called for more

local and educational programming in children’s local languages.

Children’s television is also less commercially viable according to most

television station executives in Africa compared to other genres such as sports,

drama and other adult/family programming. Media organizations are therefore

inclined to devote very few of their resources and little time to children’s

television programs. In order for children from poorer parts of the world such as

Africa to be on the same level playing field in terms of knowledge, growth and

59
development as children from developed countries, African children need a

certain level of access and involvement with media, broadcasting and their

accompanying technologies. As a result of such limited resources and attention

to children’s programming on the continent, philanthropic and advocacy groups

have called for and continue to call for government attention to bring about

changes and improvements in addressing children’s needs on television and in

the media as a whole.

Japan’s efforts for children’s programming involve more than just

animation. With the help of Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK has provided

children’s programming since 1953 including programs such as dramas, quizzes,

science programs, variety shows and preschool programs. NHK’s efforts for

children’s programming resulted in significant increases in high quality children

and youth programs in the 1990s (Kodaira, 2000). Japan has a prolific history of

children’s television programming. Since the introduction of television in 1953

the public broadcaster NHK has been producing school broadcast programs,

children’s drama, variety shows, quiz and science programs, puppet shows, and

programs for pre-schoolers. Japan is also famous around the world for its

animated programs for children such as Pokemon and Power Rangers (von

Feilitzen & Bucht, 2001).

The importance of regulation and its influence on children’s programming

diversity cannot be underestimated. For instance, the introduction of regulations

and the establishment of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation

brought about a shift in Australia’s children’s television schedule. They moved

60
from buying imported and foreign children’s programs to producing quality local

children’s content for television. Australia has taken significant strides with

children’s programming since its inception in the 1970s. This was substantiated

by the establishment of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation in 1982

and the implementation of regulation ensuring the provision of locally produced

children’s programs on television. This action also received strong support from

the government of Australia. The Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) is

very instrumental in the regulation and policy process of children’s

programming. Studies show that Australian children’s television industry has

seen significantly positive changes in the “quality, quantity, domesticity and

diversity” of children’s programming over a period of twenty years and the reason

is attributed to regulation and programming quota requirements by the ABA and

the government (von Felitzen & Hammarberg, 1996).

North America’s children’s media industry is a strong player on the global

stage and is in complete contrast to that of Latin America. Latin American

countries also face challenges with children’s television, including the lack of

creation and availability of locally produced children’s television programs for

decades; however, there have been calls from local producers and interest groups

for the development of locally produced and culturally sensitive children’s

programs for Latin American countries. Another barrier to children’s

programming in Latin America is the issue of unequal access of media to

children. Television access, as in Africa, is limited to mostly urban and affluent

households. There is a lot of dependence on foreign programs from North

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America and Japan. These programs are usually older shows that are no longer in

use in their originating countries. In addition many children continue to turn to

adult programming to make up for the diversity needed in children’s programs.

There are also limited resources, including economic, technological and trained

personnel, available to public and government stations across Latin America

(Reyes, 1998).

Developing countries such as India, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka

and Thailand in 1994 and 1995 reported increases in animated programs and

drama for children and decreases in informational, cultural and pre-school

programs. In addition to limited television programs for children there are also

limited radio programs, films, books and newspapers targeted at children. In

addition, studies showed 47% of children’s programs in these countries were

originating from foreign countries (Goonasekera, 1998). For example, in India,

Sri Lanka and Bangledesh it is estimated that the proportion of children’s

programs ranges from one to five per cent (von Feilitzen & Bucht, 2001).

Programming in India for children below the age of five years is almost non-

existent (Goonasekera, 1998).

Research shows that public broadcasting service had the important goal of

serving as a tool for cultural and intellectual enlightenment of society (Avery

1993, Saucier 1996). Like many Anglophone countries in Africa, broadcasting

services in Ghana were modeled after the public-service broadcasting systems of

the BBC. However the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the pioneer when

it comes to public broadcasting, continues to move away from public service into

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the commercial market place. The push by governments for increasing free

market practices and the growth and proliferation of new media and technology

are two major forces driving the success of commercial media all over the world.

Types of Broadcasting Systems

The types of broadcasting systems vary from country to country. Europe is

known for its foundation in and commitment to public broadcasting while North

America, especially the United States, sets the standard for commercial

broadcasting. Brown (1996) argued that public-service broadcasting in the

United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada are ones positioned to be highly

centralized. The opposite exists in the United States where public broadcasting is

more decentralized in nature. In addition Brown (1996) argued that compared to

the United States, the United Kingdom devotes a larger proportion of its gross

national product to public-service broadcasting. It is however important to note

that the United States still contributes significantly to public broadcasting and in

some cases more than what many developing countries devote to children’s

media entirely.

One of the most threatening challenges facing public-service broadcasting

is how to co-exist with commercial broadcasting (McChesney, 1999). Commercial

broadcasters are in the business primarily to make money and sell their products

to audiences. As a result, they put in enough capital to ensure that the programs

they create and produce are appealing and viable to help commercial

broadcasters achieve their goal of commercial success. Nikken (2003) states

“Although many children’s departments eloquently underline their crucial public

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duty and social responsibility towards children when outlining their goals and

objectives, they have adapted their programming to adjust to the competition

from other television stations” (p. 37). The motivation, therefore, for many

children’s television providers in today’s media industry is commercial success.

On the other hand public broadcasters are in the business to create quality

content, which informs and educates and is representative of all audiences

including those in the minority. As a result of the different approaches to

broadcasting, public-service broadcasters have difficulty competing in

predominantly commercial broadcasting systems, which is the model most

countries are moving to in the twenty-first century. McChesney (1997) argued

that the decline in public-service broadcasting around the world along with

significant increases in multi-channel television systems has led to questions

about the necessity of continuing to provide public broadcasting. Public-service

broadcasting was advocated as a way to increase programming and media

content for all audiences including children. However, with recent growth and

development of commercial media around the world, the above argument has

become more difficult to sustain. McChesney (1997) asserts that the need to use

public-service as a tool for intervention within the media market place is no

longer justified.

The consequence of the challenge of commercial broadcasting includes a

reduction in the size of the audience for public-service broadcasting. However,

with most commercial stations losing interest in children’s content as a result of

its lack of profitability, the educational and informational needs of children

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receive less media attention. Therefore intervention and advocacy for more

diversity in children’s programming with emphasis on providing content that

promotes children’s educational development is important.

Economic constraints have resulted in a reduction of government subsidy

available to public-service broadcasting. This has forced many public service

broadcasters to seek commercial avenues for funding as in the case of the Ghana

Broadcasting Corporation’s move to commercial broadcasting in addition to its

public service mandate. McChesney (1999) argued that one way public-service

broadcasting can survive is to find a niche to serve. The danger however, is that

as public-service broadcasting becomes more like commercial broadcasting it

loses its uniqueness and the need for government/public subsidy. The models

chosen as background and foundation for the study of children’s broadcasting in

Ghana are those of the United Kingdom because it represents a country with a

dominant public broadcasting system and the United States because it represents

a dominant commercial broadcasting system. In addition, the United Kingdom

and the United States are strong pioneers and leaders in the provision of

children’s programming. These two systems also provide the most children’s

programming in their respective countries and around the world.

To further discuss the children’s television industry, two complimentary

models from the United Kingdom and United States were selected for a more in-

depth analysis of the different stakeholders and their role in the children’s

television community. These two models were selected because they also

represent the most commonly employed media models around the world. Within

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these models there is significant emphasis on children’s television as exemplified

by the U.K. and the US. Although different in approach, the common themes

from these two models are the successes they have with programming children’s

television content.

Children’s Television Industry in the United Kingdom

Originally as a private company made up of radio manufacturers, the

British Broadcasting Company (BBC) was incorporated in 1922 and began

broadcasting in 1923 with a public service mandate as its foundation. The

institutional form of public-service broadcasting began during John Reith’s era as

director – general of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in the 1920s.

Reith’s objective for public-service broadcasting was to bring changes to cultural,

social, political, economic and institutional structures in the United Kingdom.

The BBC was established as a national resource independent of the government

and in 1927 reconstituted from a private company to become the British

Broadcasting Corporation under the royal charter (McDonnell, 1991).

The public service mandate carried by the British Broadcasting

Corporation had come to establish itself as a model that other broadcast and

media entities could emulate and learn from (Blumler (1993). The BBC’s

principles from the very beginning were universality of service, diversity of

programming, provision for minorities and the disadvantaged, sustenance of an

informal electorate and cultural and educational enrichment. The British

Broadcasting Corporation since its inception has experienced significant and

major changes. According to Blumler (1993) “it would be erroneous to regard the
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public service idea as a fixed and static creed. In Britain, it has been adapted to

social change, to demands for new services and to organizational reform, of

which the most influential was undoubtedly the transformation of the

broadcasting system from a monopoly to duopoly with the creation of ITV in

competition with BBC in 1966” (p. 6).

The United Kingdom’s Independent Television (ITV) began as a

commercial station established to compete with the British Broadcasting

Corporation and its public service oriented programming. In addition to clear

differences such as commercial verses non-commercial and nature of

programming, Independent Television’s funding also originates from different

sources from those of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Independent

Television receives its funding from advertising revenue compared to BBC’s

funding source of license fees. As far as funding is concerned, the separation of

the source of funding for the BBC from that of ITV allows for both entities to be

sufficiently funded without competing with each other, which in turn gives each

organization the ability to fulfill their public service obligations to their

audiences. Public broadcasting in the United Kingdom continues to face

challenges in serving the public interest needs of children while the United States

on the other hand faces challenges of developing new strategies for providing

more quality public service content and educational programming for children.

Structure of the Children’s Television Industry in the U.K

The establishment of ITV brought duopoly to the United Kingdom’s

broadcasting system, ending the British Broadcasting Corporation’s monopoly

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over broadcasting. The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) served as the

regulatory agency independent of British Broadcasting Corporation, Independent

Television, the British government as well as production companies originating

from and outside of the United Kingdom. The British Broadcasting Corporation

and Independent Television create and provide programming for different

audience groups, differentiated by age, taste and level of access. One such

audience group targeted and reached by both BBC and ITV are children.

BBC’s effort with children’s programming has been a significant part of its

mission. The BBC has served as the standard for many broadcasting systems

around the world, including those in many African countries such as Ghana. The

BBC has unmatched achievements when it comes to children’s educational

program content specifically, also one of the principles of public-service

broadcasting. “Public service broadcasting was conceived and fostered within an

overarching ideal of cultural and intellectual enlightenment of society” according

to Avery (1993, p. xiii). He argued that broadcasting could uplift its audiences

and, in addition, contributes to their quality of life (Avery, 1993).

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the pioneer when it comes to

public broadcasting continues to move away from public service into the

commercial market place. The push by governments for increasing free market

practices and the growth and proliferation of new media and technology are two

major forces driving the success of commercial media all over the world. In the

mid 1990s there was a decline in the amount of children’s television programs in

Europe (Blumler & Biltereyst, 1997). The proportion of children’s television

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programs broadcast by European public broadcasters was 9.5% of overall

programming output. Furthermore, the decline in locally produced children’s

programs was inversely related to the number of imported children’s program. In

1995, whiles 37% of children’s programs were locally produced, 62% were

imported (von Feilitzen & Bucht, 2001).

The picture in the U.K., which is held up as a model of public service

children’s programming is more positive. The results of an audit of children’s

television programs in the U.K. from 1956-1996 by Buckingham, Davis, Jones

and Kelley (1999) showed an increase in children’s television programs over the

years. Increases in dedicated children’s channels resulted in an increase in the

amount of children’s programming. However, the proportion of children’s

television programs relative to total television output had not increased

significantly. Also, there was an increase in the amount of imported programs

and repeats but this was predominantly in the new or marginal slots in the

schedule.

The BBC has several television stations within the United Kingdom that

provide public broadcasting services to audiences and are funded by television

license fees. The BBC television stations in the United Kingdom include BBC 1,

BBC 2, BBC 4, CBBC, Cbeebies, BBC News 24 and BBC Parliament. Children’s

television continues to receive attention in the midst of all these changes in the

British media system as well as commitment from regulatory bodies and media

organizations to provide quality content for children. Television in the UK is

considered the medium for children’s leisure. The players within a children’s

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television industry differ from one system to another depending on the type of

system in which they operate. In the United Kingdom, where it is a

predominantly public-service broadcasting system, the players are similar to the

ones in a predominantly commercial system such as that of the United States.

The players in the children’s television industry in the United Kingdom

include educational content creators, entertainment content creators,

broadcasters, regulators and advertisers. The United Kingdom as with many

media industries in Europe and North America are experiencing significant

increases in multichannel penetration approaching 80% of the market. There are

also major increases in the number of channels dedicated to children’s

programming in the United Kingdom. In 2006 for example, the United Kingdom

had 18 channels excluding “time-shifted channels” devoted exclusively to

children’s programming and content. However, this development also led to a

reduction in the appeal of the five main terrestrial channels to children and their

viewing habits. These terrestrial channels in 2006 provided a total of 4,252 hours

of programming, with its commercial stations providing an additional 2,437

hours of content for children in the United Kingdom.

CBeebies, a BBC channel for children for example, in 2007 provided a total

of 4,691 hours of actual television content, invested a total of 77% of its revenue

in new content development and creation and added 29% of new television

content to its schedule for children. CBBC offered a total of 1308 hours of factual

and educational content, 955 hours of children’s drama and 86 hours of

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children’s news. BBC1 and BBC2 together offered 1,941 total hours of children’s

content in 2007 (BBC Annual Report, 2007).

Funding Children’s Television in the UK

The children’s television industry in the United Kingdom is dual system

made up of public service stations and channels as well as commercial stations

and channels and are both sustained by very different funding strategies and

options. The television market as a whole is a significant part of the British

economy currently with five free-to-air analog networks. The children’s television

industry in the United Kingdom in 2007 brought in about £340 million,

equivalent to $680 million, the second largest children’s television industry in

the world. Children’s television as do other media in Britain, receive income from

three major sources namely television license fees, advertising, and finally from

subscriptions. In the United Kingdom broadcasters earned about £268 million of

the total revenue in 2006 from children’s programming out of which £90 million

went towards broadcaster overheads. Broadcasters also spent £178 million

dollars on program acquisition and production. The most consistent and

successful of the three sources has been license fees. Advertising and

subscription, on the other hand, continue to come under constant pressure and

competition from cable and satellite companies. Of the £268 million of revenue

British broadcasters received £126 million of the revenue came from license fees

(Ofcom, 2007).

Advertising and subscription for children’s television content both

decreased significantly in 2001, and this decline has continued to date. The
71
underlying factors for this decline were attributed to competition among

television channels and audience fragmentation. Commercial content for children

has seen overwhelming growth in the United Kingdom; however, that growth is

not reflected in the revenue broadcasters are receiving from the industry.

However, studies show that investment in children television by broadcaster is

consistent except in commercial public-service broadcasting, which shows

decreases in investments from broadcasters (Ofcom, 2007).

In Britain, children’s television content is acquired by stations using

different strategies. Some stations commission the creation of children’s content

in house while others acquire content from independent creators with other

stations combining both strategies. The BBC for example creates a significant

amount of its children’s content in house and also acquires a minimum amount

of its programming from independent creators. Broadcasters in the United

Kingdom restrict their children’s television content acquisition to the UK and do

not acquire or commission international or foreign producers. Broadcasters in

2006 spent a total of £109 million which is equivalent to about $218million on

the production of children’s programs. Producers in the United Kingdom also

infrequently create content for international broadcasters (Ofcom, 2007).

According to BBC, the top rated shows include Newsround on CBBC,

which is watched by 1.7 million children; Sarah Jane Adventures, also on CBBC

attracts 1.3 million audiences; Shawn the Sheep is watched by 800,000 children

on CBBC; and finally Lizzie McGuire on CBBC is watched by about 800,000

72
children. In an assessment of children’s programming in the UK, Ofcom reported

that the most popular children’s programs are the ones created in the UK.

Children’s Television Industry in the United States

While children’s television programming in the United Kingdom has been

held up as a model for public service children’s programming, children’s

programming in the United States is considered the prototype for commercial

children’s programming. Children’s television broadcasting has a significant fifty

year history of providing programming in the United States. Children’s television

in the United States has faced challenges with content, policy and regulation.

Children’s programming traces back to radio and movie theaters during the

1920s and 30s when these two forms of media targeted children audiences.

Studies show that the traditional Saturday short movies and matinees were

developed for the consumption of young audiences. However, this changed with

the introduction of radio and the creation of family listening traditions in many

American households (Mitroff & Herr Stephenson, 2007).

Radio began the trend for family interaction with media and the medium

continued to expand between the 1920s and 1930s with children and households

as consistent audiences for radio dramas and comedy. Children such as those of

today’s generation also notably influence family purchases of their respective

households, which is now the trend for television and which advertisers

appreciate and exploit. The growth of television slowed down considerably

during the Second World War but the FCC in 1946 began issuing television

licenses again thus opening the way to significant diffusion of the television
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technology leading to heavy increases in television ownership, making the 1950’s

“the golden age of television” according to Barnouw (1990) which also led to

declines in radio and movie appeal to audiences including children.

In 1950 only 10% of American households owned television sets, which

increased dramatically to more than 65% in 1955 (Baker & Dessart, 1998).

However, concern for the connection between television and children’s behavior

issues and subsequent congressional hearings drew public attention to and

awareness of television violence. These challenges, among others, did not slow

down the growth of the entertainment industry in the United States as reflected

by significant increases in the number of households that owned television sets

from 65% to 90% by 1960. The networks, namely NBC, CBS, and ABC, served

these audiences with television content and as a result became an integral part of

the media trend and popular culture. According to Mitroff and Herr Stephenson

(2007):

The story of children’s television in the United States is one of a delicate

balance between governmental regulation, advocacy by concerned citizens,

and reactions by those in the industry. By and large the children’s

television industry has stepped up to the challenge of assisting children in

understanding and adapting to a changing society, and continues their

work in the face of the challenging issues encountered by children (and

adults) today. There is, however, constant negotiation between the desire

to shape children’s programming around children’s educational,

74
 informational, and socioemotional needs and the perpetuation of

television as a business (p. 4).

In the 1970s, ABC, CBS and NBC were the primary providers of children’s

television programming with the Saturday morning slot as the main window for

children’s programming. In 1979, Nickelodeon was introduced as the first cable

channel in the United States dedicated to children’s programming. By 1992, there

were other cable channels carrying some children’s programming. These were the

Cartoon Network, Black Entertainment Television, Family Channel, USA

Network and the Sci Fi Channel (Pecora, 2004). By the end of the 1990s Disney

Channel, Cartoon Network and the Fox Kids Network became full time children’s

cable networks providing children’s programs. Cable also provided the

broadcasting networks with children’s programming. The four children’s cable

networks also provided programs to other countries around the world. For

instance, in 2001, Nickelodeon was received in ninety million households in more

than seventy countries (von Feilitzen & Bucht, 2001).

In the United States the three most successful cable networks that provide

children’s programming are Nickelodeon, Disney and Cartoon Network. These

channels are also internationally successful and lucrative by themselves and in

collaboration with local television stations across the continent. By 2004 the

majority of children’s television content was provided by the “Big Four” media

giants namely Time Warner Inc., Viacom Inc., The Walt Disney Company, and

News Corporation although children’s programming comprises a very small

component of these multinational organizations. The children’s television sectors

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of Time Warner, Viacom, the Walt Disney Company and News Corporation Inc

have been identified as the most profitable and fastest growing area within the

operations of these organizations. Time Warner’s Cartoon Network for example

generates more profit compared to that of some of its other award winning

international channels, and Viacom’s Nickelodeon established itself as the fastest

growing component of the media giant. Nickelodeon’s growth between the year

2002 and 2003 was a significant 20% (McChesney, 1993; Alexander & Owers,

2007; Viveiros, 2005; Steinberg, 1998 & Chan-Olmsted, 1996).

Revenue from children’s advertising was $1.13 billion in 1998. A large

money making component of the children’s television industry in the United

States is licensing and merchandising. Most of the profit from children’s

television comes from licensing, merchandising and more and more from

international sales of syndicated children’s content. Children’s television

inspired products such as comic books, toys, lunch boxes and theme parks to

name a few are major earners for producers within the US media industry

(Pecora, 1998; Schlosser, 1999 & Buckingham, 2000).

One of the fastest areas of growth within the children’s television industry

in the US is animated television shows. Animation has grown significantly in the

last decade and is expected to continue to grow significantly and serve as a major

source of revenue for the children’s television industry. With the continued

development of sophisticated computer animation software and equipment, the

business of animation looks very promising for the children’s television industry

in developed countries (Hubka, 1999; London, 2007). Blumler and Biltereyst

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(1998) contend that the rise of commercial television in the last decade has

influenced children’s public television considerably with the result being less

variety in genres and formats and dominance of animated programs. They

acknowledged considerable growth of animation within the commercial

television industry.

Increasingly children combine their television viewing with the use of

other forms of media, putting television in the role of necessary background noise

favorable for other activities like playing games on the computer, chatting or

texting on their cell phones (Whitney, 2005). Children’s television in the US

continues to grow irrespective of children’s involvement with other media

technologies. Children’s television and its success has inspired and contributed to

the success of other forms of media such as the children’s movie industry lead by

the Walt Disney Company and the Disney Pixar Animation Studios now

responsible for popular children’s movies such as A Bugs Life, Finding Nemo,

Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, Cars, the Incredibles and Ratatouille

(Pixar n.d.). The extensive commercial successes of these movies speak to the

economic viability of the children’s media industry including children’s

television. Television shows such as the Lizzie McGuire show, Hanna Montana

and Sponge Bob Square Pants, Rugrats and Even Stevens have all been made

into movies with exceptional box office and commercial success (Disney n.d.).

Although a predominantly commercial system, the children’s television

industry in the United States also serves the public interest needs of children and

as a result provides public broadcasting options for children. David Sarnoff, a

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pioneer in radio and television, in 1922 advocated for public-service broadcasting

in the United States, arguing that the role of broadcasting is to entertain, inform

and educate the citizens of the United States and emphasized the need to

carefully distinguish broadcasting as a public service (Briggs, 1985). The Federal

Communications Commission in its quest to support public-service broadcasting

set aside 242 channels for educational programming during the 1950s. The 242

channels were considered the earliest educational television channels and were

completely noncommercial and received support from organizations such as

Universities, community organizations and most significantly the Ford

Foundation (Witherspoon, Kovitz, Avery & Stavitsky, 2000). Public service

television in the United States, however, has faced many challenges, ranging from

funding difficulties to the quality of programs developed for audiences including

children as well as the use of programs as avenues for promoting products and

other merchandise (Grossman, 1981).

Public-service broadcasting in the United States has had tremendous

success with programs like Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Barney

and Friends, The Magic School bus, Bill Nye, and Arthur, to name a few.

Although public broadcasting enjoyed significant successes with these programs,

public broadcasting faced extensive competition from premium cable and

dedicated children’s channels like Disney and Nickelodeon. As a result of these

challenges public broadcasting experienced and continues to experience

fragmentation of its children’s audiences (Simensky, 2007; Chan-Olmsted, 1996

& Whitney, 2005).

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Structure of Children’s Television in the United States

As a fundamentally commercial broadcasting system, the media

organizations are very competitive in their role of creating and providing

television content for all audiences. Children have become very viable consumers

for television stations, advertisers and other relevant stakeholders. Children’s

television went through significant changes during the 1990s as children’s

viewing patterns shifted from the broadcast networks to cable television. To

understand how significant this change was it is important to compare the

numbers from the 1980s to those of the 1990s. During the 1980s children’s

television content and programming originating from the broadcast networks

constituted 98% compared to only 15% in the 1990s. Cable now accounts for a

total of 77% of children’s programming, with syndicated programs accounting for

8% of the total number of children’s programs (Petrozzello, 1998; Alexander &

Owers, 2007).

Audience fragmentation is one of the challenges broadcasters face with

children audiences as a result of the shift from broadcast network programming

to cable programming. Broadcast television stations acquire content through 3

different means namely through their network, through syndication and local

originations. Network programs are programs that the network funds, produces

and distributes to television stations. Syndicated programs are programs that

television distribution companies sell to local television stations. Television

programs produced by local television stations for local communities are known

as local originations. Cable channels on the other hand acquire children’s content
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through internal production, which consists of content cable stations create and

produce themselves. Cable channels also acquire content from independent

production firms and through syndication as broadcast networks do (Alexander

& Owers, 2006).

It is important to note here that production of children’s television content

is dominated significantly by some of the major production studios in the United

States. Others involved in the process of children’s television production include

a limited number of independent and international producers. More and more

international producers are entering the children’s television market through

mutual collaborations with major studios and media conglomerates in the United

States.

The children’s television industry in the United States continues to face

challenges and competition from such new technologies as the internet and video

games, which to a large extent are responsible for some of the decline in its

appeal to children. Another source of concern for the children’s television is

continued audience fragmentation. Between networks and cable stations, the

industry generates more than one thousand hours of content each week for

children. With such an extensive amount of choice audience fragmentation is

inevitable, causing stakeholders to begin to evaluate and consider other options

for reaching and maintaining their appeal to children (Pecora, 1998).

Funding Children’s Television in the United States

Children’s television is one of the most profitable and the fastest growing

areas within media organizations and conglomerates. As a mostly commercial

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system, children’s television in the United States is produced and delivered by

companies with the aim of earning profits. As a result content for children is

created so it can make the most profit for media organizations. Most of the

funding children’s television receives in the United States comes from advertising

revenue and product merchandising. Cable television obtains its funding from

both advertising revenues and subscriber fees from cable subscribers. Subscriber

fees come in the form of monthly fees from cable owners and subscribers and

cable networks “buy channel programming for a per-subscriber fee” (Alexander &

Owers, 2006).

The cost of programming for cable stations is different from one

subscriber to another. Disney for example cost about $.78 per subscriber

(Dempsey, 2005). Part of the funding for United States children’s television

comes from international collaborations and ventures especially with recent

advances in the globalization of children’s television. To further prove how

profitable children’s television is today, between 2002 and 2003 Viacom’s

Nickelodeon television channel reported a 20% growth rate. Nickelodeon is

reported to reach over 214 million households worldwide and is rated as the

number one media network for twelve consecutive years (Viacom, 2007).

Converting the reach of channels like Disney and Nickelodeon into advertising

opportunities translates into significant funding for children’s television.

Advertisers of children’s products such as toys and food are the ones who

advertise consistently on children’s television stations and channels. Companies

like Hanna Barbera and Mattel are some of the biggest beneficiaries from

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children’s consumption of television and its associated products and services

targeted specifically at children.

In the United States children’s television industry merchandise license fees

are a significant source of funding for the industry and to a large extent one of the

important reasons the industry continues to be so successful. Television

producers sell images from popular shows to toy, games, clothing and lunchbox

makers or companies and charge 5% to 15% in fees in return for the use of the

image (Pecora, 1998; Schlosser, 1999 & Buckingham, 2000). One such successful

example is the Sponge Bob image in the food section of grocery stores in the

United States.

In recent times toy makers have become more engaged with the

production process of children’s television content and are strong partners in the

creative process. Toy makers are negotiating the creation of television shows

around their products and buying the creative licenses for shows with the aim of

developing toy products using the characters from the television show

(Schmuckler, 1995). By making this choice, toy makers also take responsibility for

a large portion of the production cost and set the stage for almost a sense of

guarantee that both the television program and the toy products based on the

television program have a chance to be successful through collaboration and

cross-promotion on the television screen and in retail and grocery stores.

Advertising on children’s television is another major source of funding for

the children’s television industry in the United States. This area of funding has

grown considerably irrespective of the obvious decline in the amount of time

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children watch television. In 1998 advertising on children’s television earned over

$1 billion and the companies bearing the bulk of this cost were General Foods,

Kellogg and Kraft (makers of food products) and Hasbro and Mattel representing

the toy companies. According to Alexander and Owers (2007) an impressive 56%

of the children’s television advertising dollars in 1994 came from toy makers and

cereal companies. It is important to note that this amount dropped to about 36%

by 1998.

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 CHAPTER 4: GHANA’S BROADCASTING SYSTEM

Introduction to Ghana

The Republic of Ghana, a former colony of the United Kingdom obtained

its independence on March 6th, 1956 and has come a long way as a developing

country. Ghana located in West Africa, is bordered by Burkina Faso in the north,

Cote D’Ivoire on the west with Togo on the east and the gulf of Guinea in the

South. Ghana is slightly smaller than the state of Oregon and is estimated to

reach about 23 million in population by July 2008. More than ten local languages

are spoken across the country, and Ghana has a literacy rate of about 58%. Ghana

has a constitutional democracy with 10 regions which are mostly for the purposes

of administration. Ghana’s gross domestic product is about $31.23 billion with a

growth rate of 6.2% and is heavily dependent on international financial aid and

assistance. It is estimated that 28% of Ghana’s population is below the poverty

line with an unemployment rate of 11% (CIA Fact Book, 2008). Ghana is

considered as very well endowed with natural resources such as gold, timber, and

cocoa which serve as reliable sources of foreign exchange for the government

(Ghanaweb, 2008). These facts and statistics reinforce Ghana’s status as a

developing country. However, as a developing country Ghana has opportunities

to improve its media industry including opportunities for growth within its

children’s television industry. It is important for media professionals and the

government to utilize such opportunities as global media trends and

international collaborations.

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Broadcasting System in Ghana

Research shows that public broadcasting service had the important goal of

serving as a tool for cultural and intellectual enlightenment of society (Avery,

1993 & Saucier, 1996). Like many Anglophone countries in Africa, broadcasting

services in Ghana were modeled after the public-service broadcasting systems of

the British Broadcasting Corporation. However, the British Broadcasting

Corporation (BBC), the pioneer when it comes to public broadcasting, continues

to move away from public service into the commercial market place. The push by

governments for increasing free market practices and the growth and

proliferation of new media and technology are two major forces driving the

success of commercial media all over the world. Public-service broadcasting, as

mentioned earlier, is defined by eight principles according to Brown, (1996)

namely geographic universality; broadcasting directly funded by the viewing and

listening audience; independence from government and vested interest; concern

for national identity and community; catering for all interests and tastes; catering

for minority; quality of programming; and creative freedom for program makers.

Some of these guiding principles have not been fully attained by

broadcasting systems in Africa. In Ghana, geographic universality, for instance, is

a goal yet to be achieved. Broadcasting has not always achieved the independence

from government and vested interests. Various governments – especially military

governments – have interfered with or directly controlled the administration of

broadcasting in Ghana. On a more positive note broadcasting in Ghana has made

significant strides as a medium for promoting national identity and community,

85
providing quality programming and catering to all interests, tastes and minorities

(Ansah, 1985).

The broadcasting industry in Ghana has been going through different

important changes in the last ten years. The industry has moved from its

historical public-service broadcasting monopoly to a pluralistic industry with

both public and private ownership and more private ownership than ever before.

Broadcasting in Ghana, like many public-service broadcasting systems around

the world, is facing various challenges and threats (Aufderheide, 1996; Brown,

1996; Steemers, 2001; Van Cuilenburg & McQuail, 2003). Public broadcasting

services and programs are in danger of being extinct and under attack from

commercially produced multiple television programs, channels and stations

which continue to be more and more appealing to the average television audience

especially in developed countries. Although the substance of programming on

commercial channels may not always be of the same social value as those of

public broadcasting, the commercial nature of these programs takes the emphasis

away from substance to mainly the entertainment value thus making it more

difficult for audiences to resist. Collins and Fin (2001) state “public service

broadcasters around the world are faced with declining budgets, audience

fragmentation, and debate over their proper role, all at a time of rapid

technological advance in distribution technology.

Historical Overview of Broadcasting in Ghana

Broadcasting in Ghana has a long history dating back to the colonial

period when Ghana, formerly called the Gold Coast, existed as a British colony.
86
Radio was introduced into the then Gold Coast by the British in 1935 (Asamoah,

1985). This was just twelve years after the charter establishing the BBC in 1922

and less than two decades after the introduction of radio into Europe and North

America (Ansu-Kyeremeh & Karikari, 1998). The new station named Station ZOY

was the third radio station to be established by the British in their colonies in

sub-Saharan Africa as part of the Empire Service (Ansah, 1985). The other two

countries that had radio broadcasting introduced were Kenya in 1928 and Sierra

Leone in 1934.

The expansion of radio services by the British into Africa continued with

the introduction of radio broadcasting in Nigeria in 1936. The introduction of

radio initially served the information, entertainment, and cultural needs of the

political and educated elite consisting of European administrators and educated

Ghanaians living in Accra (Ansah, 1985). The station relayed news, cultural, and

entertainment programs from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Station ZOY was launched by the British Colonial Governor, Sir Arnold Hodson

in 1935. Station ZOY began as a radio relay network located in Accra, the capital

of Ghana, to serve the British expatriate and the elite Ghanaian community when

Ghana’s was under British rule. Station ZOY’s programming was produced by the

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) during this period. Station ZOY with its

initial staff of eight was placed under the administration of the Information

Services Department (GBC, 1985). As a result of the role of the production of

Station ZOY’s content and programming by the British Broadcasting Corporation

(BBC), the British government’s Public Relations Department supervised the

87
production of the news and information transmitted to the then Gold Coast

audiences.

From 1946 through 1953, the station was run as part of the Public

Relations Department of the British colonial government (Alhassan, 2005).

Responsibility for the administration of the station changed once again in 1954

when, upon the recommendation of a commission set up by the Governor to

assess the future of broadcasting in the country, a separate department was

established and named the Gold Coast Broadcasting Service (GCBS). After

Ghana’s independence, Gold Coast Broadcasting Service (GCBS) was renamed

the Ghana Broadcasting System (GBS) and moved to new premises with state of

the art facilities. In 1968, Ghana Broadcasting System was renamed Ghana

Broadcasting Corporation after the incorporation of the service. Prior to its

incorporation, broadcasting was centralized and under state control. After it

became a corporation, broadcasting services were still funded by the government.

This meant that the President and Minister of Information could influence

appointments, promotions and program content.

In order to improve its reach and access to audiences in rural Ghana the

British government built a broadcasting house that started broadcasting in local

Ghanaian languages in 1940. After this, Station ZOY’s audiences increased

considerably during the Second World War because the station also served as an

important source of news about the war for its audiences (Alhassan, 2005). The

administrative changes regarding the provision of broadcasting in Ghana was

linked with the technological and programming developments taking place with

88
broadcasting. The function of broadcasting in Ghana has changed over the years.

It initially served elitist interests, and then was used as a medium of

communication by colonial authorities to reach both the general populace and

colonial administrators in different parts of the country. During World War II,

radio was used to rally support for the war effort as well as provide information

on the status of soldiers from the Gold Coast (Asamoah, 1985).

The fact that the Ghana Broadcasting entity was now a corporation and

began broadcasting commercially did not change its primary source of funding

and financing. The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation was primarily financed by

the Ghana government, which also meant that the station was controlled by the

Ghana government. The government had control over everything from content,

programming, and decisions on the personnel and staff on the station the Ghana

Broadcasting Corporation remained state-owned monopoly until the early 1990s

(Heath, 2001). However, the 1992 constitution made provisions for the state-

owned broadcasting corporation to be protected from the control of the

government.

The 1990s signify the birth of media liberalization. Before media

liberalization, Ghana had only one broadcasting service and which was the Ghana

Broadcasting Corporation (GBC). The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC)

provided both radio and television broadcasts before the period of media

liberalization in the 1990s. The changes Ghana went through in the 1990s were

not only broadcasting related; they were also political, economic and social and

therefore significant to the country’s development and growth. In 1992 the

89
country went back to democratic rule after years of being under military rule. In

addition, the constitution of Ghana guaranteed freedom of the press and opened

the doors to private ownership of media. Although there were attempts by some

members of the opposition party to use radio against the government after Ghana

went back to democratic rule, the government quickly shut them down. The first

officially recognized private station was a station located on the campus of

University of Ghana called “Voice of Legon”, which begun transmission in 1995

with the students from the University.

With the doors open for private entrepreneurs to be a part of the media

industry in Ghana, efforts were put in place to establish new television and radio

stations across the country. One such effort was a partnership between Ghana

Broadcasting Corporation and Media Number One, an advertising company, to

launch Metropolitan Entertainment Television (Metro TV) in 1996. Metropolitan

Entertainment Television (Metro TV) was the first commercial station providing

entertainment programs for people living in Ghana’s capital and surrounding

cities. That same year the Ghana government sold its film corporation, the Ghana

Films Corporation, into one of the largest media investment groups in Malaysia,

Media Prima Berhad. The Malaysian investors stripped the film industry down

and established TV3 Network Limited, launching the very first privately owned

free-to-air television station in 1997. With the above changes Ghana began its

journey as a country with a pluralistic media industry consisting of state-owned

public stations, private commercial stations and private pay television stations all

competing to provide programming for Ghanaian audiences.

90
 The initial reach of station ZOY was limited to Accra because of the level of

development of the technology involved. Radio transmission depended on relay

equipment and re-diffusion boxes. It was, however, not uncommon to see large

crowds of people gathering around a re-diffusion box to listen to the programs of

Station ZOY (GBC, 1985). With time, the system was expanded to other parts of

the country through the establishment of relay stations in Cape Coast, Sekondi,

Kumasi and Koforidua. The expansion of the system was associated with the

increase in the number of programs that were delivered in local Ghanaian

languages. It also meant that more local staff had to be employed.

In the 1960s, radio diffused more widely with the introduction of

transistorized technology where subscribers could tune into radio broadcasts

without being connected to relay stations by cable (Ansu-Kyeremeh & Karikari,

1998). The number of subscribers increased as radio became more accessible. To

meet the demand for radios as well as to promote the government’s goal of using

broadcasting as a tool for development, a partnership between Ghana Sanyo

Limited and SANYO Japan was formed to assemble radio sets in Ghana (Ansu-

Kyeremeh & Karikari, 1998). These radios were sold at affordable prices and

given to rural communities at subsidized prices.

One other landmark in the technological development of broadcasting in

Ghana was the inauguration of a television service in 1965 – three decades after

the introduction of a radio service. Television broadcasts were accessible to about

two-thirds of the southern portion of the country. The northern third of the

country received rebroadcasts of the previous day’s programs from Accra. In

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1985, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation acquired microwave transmitters and

other equipment after which television broadcasts expanded to cover the whole

county. The new equipment also facilitated the migration from black and white to

color transmission.

Another technological innovation that had a dramatic impact on radio

broadcasting was the introduction of FM transmission. The Ghana Broadcasting

Corporation (GBC) got its first transmitter as a gift from West Germany and

began transmission in 1986 (Heath, 2001). The 500-watt transmitter was used

for the regional FM station, Greater Accra Radio. Though more limited in reach

than short-wave radio, FM transmission was less expensive and could be used as

community radio stations. In the 90s, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation

established regional FM stations in almost all the regions of Ghana, thus

increasing the accessibility of radio and the potential for local programming.

Commercial Broadcasting

For the most part, broadcasting in Ghana has been a centralized state-

owned monopoly. Broadcasts services originated from Accra and were funded by

the Ghana government. After its incorporation, the Ghana Broadcasting

Corporation (GBC) also began a commercial service and a television license fee

was levied on all owners of television sets; yet it still received subsidy from the

government to operate. The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, modeled after the

British Broadcasting Corporation, tried to maintain its public service mandate

over the years. Some of the challenges faced by the corporation included the

prevailing political and economic conditions, the introduction of private

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commercial broadcasting introduced market competition in broadcasting and the

continued pressure on the government to keep reducing its subvention to the

corporation.

Perhaps, the most significant changes for children’s programming could

be the introduction of private commercial broadcasting. On a positive note, the

proliferation of private independent stations translates into an increase in the

number of broadcast hours available for programming. By the year 2002, 17

licenses had been issued to set up television stations and 12 were in operation in

different regions of the country (Alhassan, 2005). In the mid 1990s satellite

subscribers in Accra had access to programming from the BBC World Service

Television and M-NET from South Africa. By the year 2006 there were 32

licensed television stations, cable and satellite subscription service providers in

Ghana. The stations that were operational in Accra included Ghana Television

(GTV), TV3, Metropolitan Entertainment Television (Metro TV) and TV Africa –

all free-to-air stations; cable operators included Cable Gold and TV Agoro; and

Multichoice all of which operate as terrestrial MMDS/cable pay TV broadcasting

service. There are three other pay-per-view stations that operate outside Ghana’s

capital – namely Crystal TV, Fontonfrom TV and Skyy TV. Crystal TV and

Fontonfrom TV operate in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region of Ghana while Skyy TV

operates in Sekondi and Takoradi as pay-per-view television stations.

Role of Broadcasting

Ansu-Kyeremeh and Karikari (1998) assert that education and politics

were two principle objectives for the establishment and spread of broadcasting
93
during both the colonial and postcolonial eras in Ghana. In a memo to the

Colonial Office, Governor Hodson requested a transmitter for Accra in order to

extend the reach of media to a wider intended audience consisting of members of

the community, teachers and children (Hodson, 1939). For Governor Hodson,

media had the potential of being used to subvert the nationalist consciousness

raised by educated Ghanaians. Media programs broadcast into schools were

expected to shape the political outlook of future generations of educated Africans

(Ansu-Kyeremeh & Karikari, 1998). By 1939, schools in 17 towns had equipment

installed by the colonial administration so children could listen to the radio (Gold

Coast Legislative Council Debates, 1939).

The first government after Ghana’s independence also considered

broadcasting as a medium for national development. The government, like other

African leaders in the 1960’s, sought to develop the mass communication

infrastructure with the belief that mass communication could be an effective tool

in development. Ghana nationalized its broadcasting service in order to use it for

nation building and socio-economic development. Broadcasting was also

considered a tool to be harnessed for developing national identity and

integration. The political and educational role of broadcasting was underscored

by Nkrumah at the inauguration address of television in Ghana: “Ghana’s

television will be used to supplement our educational programme and foster a

lively interest in the world around us. It will not cater for cheap entertainment

nor commercialism. Its paramount objective will be education in the broadest

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and purest sense. Television must assist in the socialist transformation of Ghana”

(Nkrumah, 1965).

The educational, cultural and entertainment functions of broadcasting

were included in the articles of incorporation of the service. It stated, among

other things, that the “objects of the broadcasting corporation shall be to

undertake sound, commercial radio and television broadcasts, to prepare in the

field of culture, education, information and entertainment programs reflecting

national progress, aspirations and to carry on an external service of sound

broadcasting (N.L.C.D. 226 1968, quoted in Anokwa 1997, p. 13).

Although the argument could be made that there are currently no specific

policies like those in the United States and the United Kingdom regarding public-

service broadcasting and educational programming for children, there are broad

parameters regarding media policy in Ghana. The 1992 constitution of Ghana for

example specifies state-owned media should grant access and opportunities for

the presentation of different views and opinions (The Parliament of Ghana,

1992). The National Media Commission of Ghana specifies the three areas of

public interest goals for media agencies. These are promoting local programming,

national identity as part of cultural, social and national development and finally

the participation of marginalized groups in national decision making (National

Media Commission, 2000)

The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) has a public service mission

of informing, educating and entertaining. Broadcasting was established as a tool

for national development and promoting national identity in Ghana. President

95
Kwame Nkrumah in his inaugural address for Ghana Broadcasting System the

name at the time emphasized that the primary goals and objectives of television

were educational and political. According to Nkrumah, television needed to be

used for the education and the socialist transformation of Ghanaians (Nkrumah,

1965).

In Ghana private and commercial media organizations are also expected to

operate in the public interest. The National Media Policy established by the

National Media Commission states that “All media and media services shall be

regarded as a public trust. The public interest shall, therefore, be paramount in

the operation of all media – public, commercial and community” (National Media

Policy, 1996 pp 27). In serving the public interest, the expectation is that both

state-owned and privately owned commercial media “shall enact the role of the

media to inform, educate and entertain in pursuit of dynamic, equitable and

culturally endowed national development” (National Media Policy, 1996 pp 2).

Most commercial media organizations strive to operate in the public interest by

providing content for such minority and underrepresented groups as women and

children; however, this trend is not always consistent within their operations.

The media environment has the potential to impact children’s

programming positively or negatively yet very little research has been done in

this area. With public-service broadcasting being threatened by economic

constraints and competition in the market place the prospect of children’s media

may be uncertain unless other factors intervene. One such intervention has been

the efforts of non-governmental organizations to support public-service

96
broadcasting and the media needs of children. The impact on children’s television

programming by the challenges facing public-service broadcasting in the context

of a developing country has not been studied. This dissertation is, therefore,

critical for the study of past and present trends in children’s television

programming in Ghana as a starting point for studying children’s media and

related achievements, challenges and the way forward in other countries on the

continent of Africa.

Historical Overview of Children’s Television Programming

With education as one of its primary goals, broadcasting agencies in

Ghana have sought to cater to the needs of children as a special audience. In the

past, such efforts included radio broadcasts to schools to supplement school

curriculum, as well as cultural and entertainment programs on both radio and

television. The radio school broadcast began in 1957 as part of the government’s

Accelerated Development Plan for Education (GBC, 1985). Six schools in Accra

received broadcast lessons in English and current affairs. The service was

expanded to include 27 secondary schools and technical institutes receiving a full

eight-week term of programs (GBC, 1985). Lessons developed for broadcast

included subjects such as African history, English literature, French, and general

science.

Apart from programs specially designed for educational institutions, the

Radio Schools Department of Ghana Broadcasting developed programs for

general listening to reach children out of school. These programs included

Everyday English, which provided lessons in grammar and usage; and Parlons
97
Francais, which taught French proficiency in 1957. There were also radio

programs targeting specific age groups. Programs such as Let’s Speak English

and Say and Sing were produced for 2nd and 3rd graders also during the late

1950s. These were 10-minute lessons in English proficiency. In the 1980s music

request programs such as Music for You and a story telling program called Once-

Upon-a-Time were produced for 4th to 6th graders.

The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio 1 is a national service that

broadcasts programs in six local languages. These programs are broadcast during

different time slots in the day. Programs included translations of the English

news broadcasts, topical discussion programs of events occurring in different

regions of the country and programs for children and youth. During the late

1960s one of the popular children’s programs was Maame O Dende! This

program was broadcast in the Akan language which is also one of the most

spoken local Ghanaian languages across the country. This program invited

children to the studio to join the host for a time of storytelling, riddles and folk

songs. These stories contained lessons aimed at teaching children moral and

social values.

Though the production of television programs was more expensive

compared to radio, in 1965 when television service was inaugurated in Ghana,

efforts were made right from the start to use this medium to reach a diverse

audience. The Television Service of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC)

set up production units for entertainment, public affairs, drama, women and

children, adult education, documentaries and schools (GBC, 1985). Television

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broadcasts lasted less than ten hours a day for many years after its introduction

yet there were programs broadcast to cater to the needs of children as a special

audience.

By the 1970s the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation began televising a

number of programs targeting specific age groups. For younger children there

was a popular puppet show called Koliko which used puppets to dramatize

adventure stories assuming characters with which children could identify. Some

of the stories included Ananse stories, which are traditional folktales very

popular with children. Another program for 5 to 15 year olds was titled

Children’s Own; an educational program using an entertainment format to

encourage children to engage in the arts it began broadcasting between the late

1970s and early 1980s. There were programs that taught children 10 to 15 years

of age basic scientific concepts and fundamental natural laws. One such program,

Young Scientist, was recognized internationally in 1967 and 1968 when it won the

children’s category award for educational programs in Japan (GBC, 1985).

Although older children were included in the target demographic for some

of the programs intended for general audiences, there were programs specially

produced to address the problems of adolescence and their role in national

affairs. One such program was Builders of Today, a youth-oriented magazine

program which was on television the late 1980s through the 1990s. The television

programs mentioned above are examples of types of programs that were

produced for children in the first twenty years of television broadcasting in

Ghana. Some of the programs had more longevity than others, and there were

99
also periods in which more hours were devoted to children’s programming than

other types.

By 1994 there were seven locally produced children’s programs televised

weekly for the greater part of the year by the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.

These were Toddler’s Time for infants and preschoolers; Hobby Time for 3rd to

5th graders; Kyekyekule, By the Fireside, and 2nd Generation targeting 6th to

9th graders; and Dos Computer Byte and Brilliant Science & Math Quiz for 10th

to 12th graders (Heath, 1996). These programs were mainly educational, ranging

in content from programs based on the school curriculum, to those teaching arts,

crafts and computer skills and programs teaching social, cultural and moral

values. These programs also employed different entertainment formats to make

them more appealing to the target audience.

New children’s programs were introduced at an average of one about every

two years. In 1995, Kiddie Quiz was broadcast for 10th to 12th graders and at the

end of the 90s there was another program for elementary school children

introduced called Kwasasa. In addition to the locally produced children’s

programs, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation also showed imported children’s

programs from Europe, the United States, and other African Countries. These

included various cartoons for young children, educational programs from

UNICEF like Chemistry, North American shows like Sesame Street, Gummi

Bears for younger children and Different Strokes, Cosby Show and Fresh Prince

for adolescents.

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 This brief historical review of children’s programs broadcast by the Ghana

Broadcasting Corporation attempts to show how broadcasting in Ghana under

the monopoly of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, sought to cater to the

needs of children guided by its public service and educational goals. In 1995, the

monopoly that the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation had over broadcasting was

broken when Radio University was launched by the University of Ghana as the

first private non-governmental radio station (Ansu-Kyeremeh & Karikari, 1998).

This was a tangible manifestation of the changing media environment in Ghana.

However, little is known about the prospects and diversity of children’s media in

Ghana within the current media environment.

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 CHAPTER 5: RESEARCH METHODS

Two main research methods and a review of relevant secondary sources

were utilized to address the research questions for this dissertation. Data from

content analysis, in-depth interviews, and secondary sources were used in

triangulation to get a clearer and a more understandable picture of the state of

children’s television in Ghana including a review and an assessment of the

contributions made by commercial, governmental and nongovernmental

organizations towards the diversity of children’s television program content. The

broadcast schedules of the three largest television stations in Ghana were

examined using content analysis. These schedules were published regularly in the

Radio & TV Guide – a monthly entertainment magazine published in Ghana.

In-depth interviews were also conducted with station managers, creators

of children’s television programs, heads of governmental institutions and leaders

of nonprofit organizations to determine the strategies each employed to achieve

or promote diversity of children’s television programs. Data collection for the

interviews took place in Ghana in the form of face-to-face interviews with station

managers, media professionals and leaders of governmental and

nongovernmental organizations. A semi-structured interview with a number of

core open-ended questions based on the functions of media professionals,

governmental and nongovernmental organization officials was used for all the

interviewees. In the event where a meeting could not be arranged to complete an

interview of a selected interviewee in person, a telephone interview was used as a

substitute for a face-to-face interview.

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 Secondary sources such as relevant industry documents from broadcasting

stations, nongovernmental organizations, and government agencies were

reviewed to obtain data on the provision of children’s television programs and to

corroborate information gained from interviewees. These multiple methods were

used to obtain both an objective and subjective (from the perspective of the

relevant stakeholders) measure of the state of children’s television diversity in

Ghana and the factors that influence it. The content analysis, for instance,

provided an objective and quantifiable measure of the commitment to children’s

television diversity as expressed by the station managers during the interviews.

On the other hand, although the content analysis provided data on which

children’s programs were broadcast, it was unable to show the factors that

influenced the quantity and diversity of programs the different stations

broadcast. This important information, however, was obtained from the in-depth

interviews and other secondary sources.

Content Analysis

Content analysis can be defined as “a research technique for the objective,

systematic, and quantitative description of manifest content of communication”

(Berelson, 1952, p.18). The advantages of using this observational method include

its utility in providing quantified empirical evidence that can be generalized.

Content analysis is a potentially beneficial component in multi-method research

studies that use different methods to increase the validity of results that could

otherwise be impacted negatively by method biases (Brewer & Hunter, 1989;

Kolbe & Burnett, 1991) such as self-reports and interviews.

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 Content analysis has been used to study media diversity in television

programming (Albarran, et al 1991; Grant, 1994), cable news programming (Bae,

1999), and print news content (Johnson & Wanta, 1999). Program content were

systematically analyzed in these media studies and concepts such as diversity and

product differentiation were empirically measured through the use of content

analysis methods. Buckingham et al. (1999) used content analysis of published

broadcast schedules to examine historical changes in children’s television

program diversity in the United Kingdom. The analysis of published program

schedules was used to answer research questions related to those posed by this

dissertation such as the variations in programs formats, target audience, and

scheduling.

This dissertation examined the daily television schedules of GTV, Metro

TV, and TV3 published in the Radio and TV Guide magazine to determine the

diversity, quantity and characteristics of children’s television programs scheduled

by the stations listed above. The scheduling strategies adopted by these stations

were also analyzed. Radio and TV Guide is a monthly Ghanaian publication that

publishes the television schedules of the dominant television stations in the two

largest television markets in Ghana. The stations include GTV, Metro TV, and TV

3 broadcasting from Accra as well as Crystal TV which is located in Kumasi. Prior

to the year 2000 the publication was known as GTV Guide and focused primarily

on the activities and programs of the national broadcasting station which was a

monopoly at the time. The launching of privately owned commercial

104
broadcasting stations changed the television broadcasting industry in Ghana as

well as the scope of the magazine.

GTV’s program schedule was analyzed to determine the level of diversity,

assess the quantity, and evaluate the characteristics of children’s programs

provided by the state owned television broadcasting station in Ghana. The

schedules for Metro TV and TV3 were analyzed to also determine the diversity,

evaluate the types and quantity of children’s programs broadcast by the largest

commercial stations in Ghana in terms of revenue and reach. Metro TV and TV 3

also served as competition for the national station GTV in the provision of

children’s television content and programming.

Sampling

The sampling frame for the dissertation was the published schedules of

GTV, Metro TV and TV3 from January 2001 through December 2004. The

published schedules of GBC for 1998 and 2000 were also examined to serve as a

benchmark for a better understanding of the changes in the provision of

children’s television programs before private commercial stations in Ghana

became a more established part of the media environment. A total of 1,095

published daily schedules consisting of 12 months of program schedules for each

of the three television stations sampled from 2001 through 2004 were analyzed.

To select the sample, the order of years from 2001 to 2004 was first randomized

resulting in 2004, 2003, 2001, and 2002 as the selection order of sampling by

year. Starting from January, a systematic sampling was used to choose a month

from each quarter of the year and assigned to each year in the order of the
105
randomized years. As a result, the published schedules for the respective years

were as follows:

ƒ 2001: March, July and November

ƒ 2002: April, August and December

ƒ 2003: February, June and October

ƒ 2004: January, May and September

The result of the sampling also led to the construction of a composite year

as shown in Table 1 below. This composite year helped with the analysis and

generalization of the data. It was important for each year to have a month

selected from each quarter of the year to accommodate for changes in seasons,

cycles of programs, holidays, as well as disruptions in the schedules due to major

sporting or special events. “Radio and TV Guide” issues for the months of

October 2003 and August 2004 were not available and the publishers were

unable to provide copies to be used for the dissertation. As a result, those issues

were substituted with the November 2003 and September 2004 issues

respectively. It must be noted that the program schedules for each quarter of the

year were relatively stable and consistent (almost the same programs in the same

time slots) and so substituting the schedules did not unduly affect the

representation of the sample chosen.

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Table 1.
Constructed composite year of sampled television broadcast schedules from
2001 through 2004

Month Year

January 2004

February 2003

March 2001

April 2002

May 2004

June 2003

July 2001

August 2002

September 2004

October 2003

November 2001

December 2002

Coding Categories

Coding categories were based on those used by Buckingham, Davies,

Jones, and Kelley (1999). These include:

ƒ Program format

ƒ Origin of production

107
 ƒ Time of day program was scheduled to broadcast

ƒ Day program was scheduled to broadcast

ƒ Age of target audience

ƒ Type of program

ƒ Production company that developed the program

ƒ Television station that broadcast the scheduled program

The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) website was used to gain additional

information about the programs not provided by the Radio and TV Guide

schedules or other program description articles in the guides. Such information

included the country of origin of the program, the synopsis and the target age.

The format of a program was coded by determining whether it was adventure,

mixed cartoons, discussion/debate, drama, fantasy/science show, game show,

hosted, quiz, religious, variety, instructor led or unknown. The type of program

was coded as animation, non-animation, puppets, mixed or unknown.

The programs were also coded to determine whether the content focus was

educational/informational, prosocial/moral, entertainment, or unknown. To

determine the production source of the programs, the programs were coded using

the categories local (produced in Ghana) or imported (produced outside Ghana).

The programs were coded to determine the target audience and the categories

were two to five year-olds, six to eleven year-olds, twelve years and older, and

unknown (please refer to code book and coding sheet for more details about the

coding categories). The researcher and an assistant coded 110 program schedules

representing 10% of total schedules coded to assess the intercoder reliability for

108
the coding scheme. The intercoder reliability for all the categories was very good

(above .8 using Scott’s pi). Coding for the rest of the published television

schedules was completed by the researcher.

In-depth Interviews

In-depth interviews were conducted with media and non-media

professionals to obtain the perspectives of stakeholders in the children’s

television community in Ghana on the subject of children’s television diversity.

Interviewees were selected based on their membership in the relevant

populations consisting of the children’s television community in Ghana. The

relevant populations of the children’s television community in Ghana from which

members were selected for interviews were content programmers, content

creators, governmental and nonprofit institutions involved with policy and

advocacy for children’s television programs. Individuals from these groups were

selected based on their responsibilities, status and influence in the population to

which they belonged. Individuals for interview were identified through industry

related secondary sources that mentioned the organizations in the various

populations of the children’s television community in Ghana. A snowballing

technique was also used where members of the children’s television community

in Ghana who learned about this dissertation research (through being

interviewed) recommended or introduced other people for interview who fit the

criteria for selection mentioned above.

A semi-structured questionnaire was used for the interviews with a set of

core questions being asked of all members from the same population of the
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children’s television community in Ghana. The core questions varied depending

on the population of the children’s television community to which the person

being interviewed belonged. These core questions were developed based on a

review of the relevant literature and the analytical framework and research

questions for this dissertation. For media professionals (content creators and

content programmers) questions addressed audience segmentation,

organizational policies and decision making processes related to children’s

television programs, relationships with nonprofit organizations, and impact of

media policies on the diversity of children’s television programs in Ghana.

Specific questions sought to determine their concept of children’s television

programming; what programs they provided to children; what policies guided

their stations regarding the broadcast of children’s programs; and how else they

catered to the needs of children as a special audience (see Appendix A

questionnaire for media professionals).

The questionnaire for non-media professionals (governmental

institutions, nonprofit/nongovernmental organizations) asked questions about

the involvement of the interviewee’s institution with children’s television in

Ghana and the institution’s role in terms of advocacy, research, and financing of

children’s television programs. Specific questions included the contributions

their organizations had made towards children’s television programming; the

strategies used and how successful these strategies had been; and their future

plans regarding children’s television programming (see Appendix A for the

110
questionnaire). Follow up questions were used during the interviews to have

interviewees elaborate on a response.

The interviews were scheduled to take between 60-90 minutes and took

place at the office of the person being interviewed. The interview setting allowed

the interviewee access to relevant official documents in responding to a question.

These documents were used to establish the accuracy of a statement by the

interviewee or shared with the interviewer to provide more detailed response to a

question. The interviews were all recorded with the permission of the

interviewee. Interviews were conducted with interviewees who agreed to

participate in this study and signed a consent form to indicate their agreement.

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 CHAPTER 6: CHILDREN TELEVISION DIVERSITY

Children’s Television Community in Ghana

A number of different organizations and institutions have an interest and a

stake in the different elements of children’s television programming in Ghana.

These organization and institutions constitute the children’s television

community in Ghana through their interactions and pursuit of organizational

goals relevant to children’s television programming in Ghana. These

organizational goals relevant to children’s television programming in Ghana

include the creation, distribution, support and protection of children’s television

programming in Ghana. The organizations and institutions involved with

children’s television programming can be categorized as populations within the

children’s television community based on their functions and goals. The

populations, defined and identified by their functions as it relates to children’s

television programming in Ghana are content creators, content programmers,

advertisers, government (regulatory) institutions, advocacy and philanthropic

organizations.

The population of content creators within the children’s television

community in Ghana consists of the production studios of television stations and

independent production companies. Until the early 1990s, GTV (then GBC) was

the sole content creator because it was the only television broadcasting station in

the country and did not generally use content from local independent producers.

The establishment of independent commercial production studios became

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feasible after GBC adopted a policy of broadcasting advertising-supported

programs and allowing commercial sponsorship of programs.

The liberalization of the media in the mid-1990s enabled other television

stations such as Metro TV and TV3 to begin operation in Ghana. Metro TV and

TV3 both have production facilities that are used in the creation of children’s

programs. As a state-owned public service oriented broadcaster, GTV

understandably had the largest production facilities and produced more

children’s programs compared to Metro TV or TV3. GTV also had a children’s

department responsible for the production of children’s programs. Metro TV

produced more children’s programs than TV3, however neither Metro TV nor

TV3 had a distinct and dedicated children’s television department like the one at

GTV.

In addition, GTV produced both educational and entertainment children’s

programs. Like GTV, Metro TV also created both educational and entertainment

programs while the children’s programs produced by TV3 tended to be

entertainment content. Since the television stations in Ghana produce both

educational and entertainment children’s programs it was difficult to categorize

them as either educational content creators or entertainment content creators – a

distinction Bryant (2007) makes with reference to the US children’s television

community.

Despite the fact that there were more programming outlets for

broadcasting children’s television programs, there were still very few

independent content creators who produced children’s programs in Ghana. The

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independent content creators with the largest number of unique program titles

scheduled for broadcast during the years reviewed for this dissertation were

Primetime Limited and Nat Lomo-Mainoo an independent producer. Primetime

Limited can be considered an educational content creator because most of its

children’s programs were curriculum-based programs using the quiz format. Nat

Lomo-Mainoo produced entertainment children’s programs that used the drama

and variety/magazine formats. Both independent content creators were not

exclusive children’s content creators because they produced programs for older

age-groups as well.

Children’s television programs were available to children through free-to-

air broadcast stations, cable television operators, and satellite programming

providers. The free-to-air broadcast stations program both locally produced and

imported children’s programs while the cable television operators and satellite

programming providers mainly had imported children’s programs on their

schedules. Cable television operators such as TV Agoro, Cable Gold, Crystal TV

and Skyy TV, and satellite programming providers such as MultiChoice Ghana

Limited provide channels with children’s programs. These channels included the

Animal Planet, Cartoon Network, E TV, SABC Africa, TBN and ZEE TV. The free-

to-air broadcast stations in Accra are Ghana Television (GTV), Metropolitan

Entertainment Television (Metro TV), TV3 Network Limited, Ghana (TV3) and

TV Africa. The examination of content programmers for this dissertation is

limited to the top three free-to-air broadcasters in Ghana. These are GTV, Metro

TV and TV3.

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 Ghana has a growing business sector with various regional, national, and

multinational companies. A number of these companies have marketing and

advertising budgets used to establish their brand in order to increase their share

in their respective markets. The main categories of companies that support

children’s programming through advertising and program sponsorship are the

food and beverage (soft drinks) industries. Multinational companies such as

Unilever, Cadbury, and Nestle were leading advertisers and sponsors of

children’s programs in Ghana. National companies such as Fan Milk Limited,

makers of ice cream, frozen yogurt and fruit drinks, also sponsored children’s

programs.

The regulatory institutions that directly impact children’s television and

can be considered as members of the children’s television community in Ghana

are the National Communication Authority (NCA) and the Ghana Media

Commission (GMC). The 1992 Ghanaian constitution stipulated the creation of

two media regulatory bodies – the NCA and the National Media Commission

(NMC). The NCA has the responsibility of managing the electromagnetic

spectrum through licensing and regulating the technical operations of the

telecommunications sector. The NMC’s mission is to promote the freedom and

independence of the media and to provide guidelines – published as the National

Media Policy – outlining the national standards for media content. The NMC is

authorized to receive complaints from individuals, media and non-media

institutions concerning the media in Ghana and has the power to arbitrate and

settle these complaints.

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 The fifteen-member NMC consist of representatives of diverse groups

including media associations, the Ghana Bar Association, religious groups,

National Council on Women and Development, and the Ghana National

Association of Teachers. The president of Ghana appoints two people to the

commission and parliament is allowed to nominate three of the members. The

structure of the NCA consists of a Board of Directors; a Director General who

serves on the board is appointed by the President of Ghana a deputy director

general; and directors of the five NCA divisions.

A number of governmental, nongovernmental and nonprofit institutions

supported the provision of children’s television in Ghana. The Ghana National

Commission on Children is a governmental agency that advocates for and

protects the rights and interests of children. The commission’s activities

indirectly influenced the provision of children’s television in Ghana as it

partnered with nongovernmental agencies in advocating for children’s access to

and participation in the media. Nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations

such as Women in Broadcasting, UNICEF, the African Youth Alliance and

Children and Youth in Broadcasting supported children’s television in Ghana by

(1) providing technical assistance to children’s content creators; (2) creating

content for children’s programs themselves; and (3) buying time slots from

television stations to air selected and specific children programs.

Children’s Television Market Structure in Ghana

Research question one for this dissertation was to determine the nature of

market concentration, barriers to entry, cost structures, and product

116
differentiation in the children’s television industry in Ghana. Ghana had a

monopolistic broadcast media market with the state-owned GBC as the sole

provider of broadcast services until the adoption of media liberalization policies

in the 1990s. This change in media policy enabled Media Number One, a private

company in Ghana, to partner with the state-owned GBC to launch Metro TV in

1996. Media Number One leased GBC’s transmitters to broadcast Metro TV’s

scheduled programs. The first privately-owned free-to-air television station was

launched in Ghana in 1997. This was made possible when Malaysian investors,

through Media Prima Berhad, purchased the Ghana Films Corporation in 1996 to

create TV3 Network Limited, Ghana (TV3).

Ghana’s broadcast media market is a potentially competitive media market

with privately owned commercial stations competing with the state-owned

commercially oriented stations. There were about 32 licensed television stations,

cable and satellite subscription service providers in Ghana. However, very few of

the companies with licenses were providing television services leading to more of

an oligopolistic media market in Ghana. Some of the companies providing

television services in Ghana include free-to-air broadcasters GTV, TV3, Metro

TV, and TV Africa as well as subscription based cable and multi channel-multi

point distribution service (MMDS) television content providers such as TV Agoro,

Cable Gold, and MultiChoice based in Accra. Three other subscription television

providers serving audiences outside the country’s capital were Crystal TV and

Fontonfrom TV in Kumasi and Skyy TV in Sekondi/Takoradi.

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 Ghana’s media markets are relatively small in terms of audience size and

advertising revenues compared with countries such as Nigeria, which has the

largest media audience in Africa with a national population of over 138 million or

South Africa with the highest advertising revenue on the continent. The

population of Ghana was estimated at 22.5 million with children fourteen years

and younger making up about 38% of the population. The national television

audience was estimated at 11.6 million and the yearly advertising revenue for

television is about 13 million dollars (Steadman Group, 2005).

The geographic area reached by the different television stations varies

based on the station’s technical capacity. GTV uses microwave links to broadcast

from Accra to the whole country. Metro TV expanded its technical capabilities to

extend its reach nationwide in 2005. TV3 has multiple transmitters to reach

audiences in the Greater Accra region, and parts of the Ashanti, Eastern, Central,

Volta, and Western regions. Reliable ratings data are not available in Ghana.

What the companies use are estimates of the potential audience based on the

reach of their broadcast. GTV assessed the size of its audience to be 11.6 million

viewers nationwide. The estimated audience during prime time (7-9 p.m.) was 6.7

million viewers (GBC About us, n.d.). Metro TV estimated its potential

nationwide audience to be 8.3 million viewers (About Metro TV, n.d.). TV3

reached about 6 million viewers due to its 65% penetration of the country.

GTV had the lowest share with 24% of television annual advertising

spending according to the Steadman Group (2005). TV3 had the highest share of

advertising spending at about 42% and Metro TV with about 31%. TV3 and Metro

118
TV depended largely on advertising revenues while GTV received some financial

government assistance, generally limited to employee salaries.

One of the barriers to entering the Ghanaian television media market was

the requirement for prospective companies to apply for a broadcast license. A

prerequisite for obtaining a television license was evidence that the company was

incorporated in Ghana and certified to do business in Ghana. The cost of the

national television license was $1,000 for the application fee and an additional

$15,000 for initial charges. Once the license was obtained the licensee paid about

$8000 annually in regulatory fees and spectrum charges.

The high initial and fixed costs of setting up a broadcast station in Ghana

can also be a barrier to entry (NCA, 2007). The acquisition of transmitters and

studio equipment was capital intensive because they had to be obtained from

international markets. The timeframe within which a company could declare a

profit could be extensive as a result of the slow nature of growth within the

television market in Ghana which has served as a barrier to entry for investors

who desire an earlier return on their investments.

Quantity of Children’s Programming

Research question two for this dissertation asks about the quantity of

children’s television programs available to children in Ghana. There were a total

of 89 unique titles of children’s programs broadcast by the three stations during

the four-year period studied. TV3 scheduled the most children’s programs with

47 unique titles during the four-year period. Metro TV broadcast 26 unique titles

of children’s programming and GTV broadcast 21 unique titles of children’s

119
programming during this period. Four programs were scheduled on multiple

stations during the four-year period studied. Two of these programs, Ocean Girl

and Saved by the Bell were both scheduled by Metro TV and TV3, while the other

two, Fun House and Fun World aired on both GTV and Metro TV. Both GTV and

Metro TV listed cartoons in their schedules without specific titles, which are

referred to as “Generic Cartoons” in this dissertation. A majority of the children’s

programs (64%) identified were scheduled for two or more consecutive years by

the three broadcast stations. 4% of the children’s programs on the schedules

analyzed were listed for four consecutive years. However, these were all

children’s programs broadcast by GTV.

GTV’s program schedule listed 71% of the total number of children’s

programs broadcast during the review period in two or more consecutive years.

19% of the children’s programs analyzed were listed in the program schedules for

four consecutive years. Three of the four programs scheduled for four consecutive

years by GTV were local productions. These were, Kejetia, Kwasasa Showtime,

and Brilliant Science and Math Quiz. Metro TV scheduled 35% of its children’s

programs during the four-year review period over two years. Another 35% of

children’s programs broadcast on Metro TV were scheduled for one year and 31%

were scheduled for two years. 55% of children’s programs broadcast by TV3

during the four years reviewed were scheduled for two consecutive years, 38%

were scheduled for one year, 6% were scheduled for three consecutive years and

no program scheduled for four consecutive years.

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 The most frequently listed children’s program in the television schedules

analyzed was Teletubbies and was scheduled for broadcast by TV3. It occurred in

8% of the total number of program listings in the broadcast schedules for all the

stations during the period analyzed. The next most frequently listed program was

generic cartoons (8%), which were broadcast by both GTV and Metro TV. School

TV (7%) and Tweenies (6%) were the third and fourth most frequently listed

programs respectively. The three most frequently scheduled children’s programs

for each of the television stations during the period analyzed were: GTV –

“Generic Cartoons”, Distance Learning and Kwasasa Showtime; Metro TV –

School TV, Flintstones and Batman; TV3 – Teletubbies, Tweenies and

Kyekyekule Kids.

Analysis of the number of children’s programs scheduled by GTV showed a

steady decline from 2001 to 2004. GTV scheduled 16 children’s programs for

broadcast in 2001. This number decreased by 19% in 2002 to 13 scheduled

children’s programs. There was a slight increase by 8% in 2003 to 14 children’s

programs scheduled for broadcast by GTV and a sharp decrease by 50% from

2003 to 2004 with 7 children’s programs scheduled for broadcast by GTV (Figure

5).

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 70
64
60
56
50
Programs

40 39
36
30
26
22
20
16 15 16
12 11 13 14
10 10
7
5
0
2001 2002 2003 2004
Year

GTV Metro TV TV3 All Stations

Figure 5. Number of unique titles of children’s television programs scheduled by

GTV, Metro TV and TV3 from 2001-2004.

Metro TV scheduled 11 children’s programs for broadcast in 2001. This

increased by 36% to 15 scheduled children’s programs in 2002 (see Figure 5).

There was a marginal increase of 7% in 2003 to 16 scheduled children’s

programs. This however, represented the highest number of children’s programs

scheduled within a year for broadcast by Metro TV. For 2004 the number of

scheduled children’s programs dropped by 37% compared to the previous year to

10 scheduled children’s programs.

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 TV3 scheduled 12 children’s programs for broadcast in 2001. The number

of children’s program scheduled by TV3 increased by 200% in 2002 to 36

children’s programs. This was the highest number of programs scheduled within

a year by TV3 and the most scheduled by any station. For 2003, the number of

children’s programs scheduled for broadcast by TV3 fell by almost 28% to 26

children’s programs. The number of children’s programs dropped further by 81%

to four children’s programs in 2004. This represented the lowest number of

children’s programs scheduled for broadcast by TV3 amounting to 13% of the

highest number of children’s programs scheduled for broadcast during 2002. The

number of programs scheduled for broadcast by TV3 in 2004 was also the lowest

number of programs scheduled within a year for broadcast by any of the stations.

Daily broadcast transmission hours differed by station and by year for the

period analyzed for this dissertation. GTV began transmission at 5 a.m. and

ended transmission at 1 a.m. for each of the four years studied except in 2004

when it began transmission on some days at 5:30 a.m. GTV had the most

consistent daily transmission and duration of scheduled programs over the years

as well as the highest number of daily transmission hours of the three stations

analyzed.

Metro TV’s daily transmission schedule was not consistent over the years.

In 2001 the station began transmission at 5:55 p.m. and ended transmission at

12a.m. on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends but this changed in the middle of the

year and by the end of that year transmission started at 6 a.m. This changed in

2002 to 5:30 a.m. to 12 a.m. each day and changed again in 2003 to 6 a.m. to

123
12a.m. each day except Mondays when it ended transmission at 2 a.m. The daily

transmission schedule of Metro TV changed again in 2004 to 5 a.m. to 12 a.m.

each day.

TV3 began transmission at 5 p.m. and ended transmission at about 12 a.m.

each day in 2001. By the end of 2002, TV3 had begun transmission at 5 a.m.

ending at 1 a.m. every day. The end of regular broadcast transmission for TV3

remained consistent at 1a.m. from 2002 through 2004, however, the start of

transmission sometimes changed to 5:30 a.m. as in 2003 and 2004. By the end of

2002, all the three stations had morning broadcasts increasing the number of

programming hours available for broadcast each day.

Although this increase in broadcast hours reflected an increase in the

number of hours scheduled for children’s programs by Metro TV and TV3 in

particular, the proportion of time on the daily schedule for children’s programs

remained about the same for each station for each of the years sampled except for

2004 in which the proportion of time scheduled for children’s programs by each

station dropped considerably (see Table 2). GTV assigned about 6% of its yearly

transmission schedule to children’s programs from 2001 through 2003. The

proportion of time scheduled for children’s programs by GTV dropped to 2% in

2004. Metro TV assigned about 13% of its yearly broadcast schedule in 2001 to

children’s programs. The proportion of time scheduled for children’s programs by

Metro TV was 11% for both 2002 and 2003. During 2004, the proportion of time

for children’s programs dropped to 9% of its yearly broadcast schedule. TV3

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assigned between 11%-13% of its yearly broadcast schedule to children’s

programs from 2001 through 2003 dropping to 2.2% in 2004.

Table 2.
Number of hours per year scheduled for children’s television programs by GTV,
Metro TV, and TV3 as a proportion of each station’s total yearly transmission
schedule from 2001 through 2004.

GTV Metro TV TV3

No. % Total No. % Total No. % Total

2001 457.2 6.3 7300 696 12.6 5530 270 10.8 2490.8

2002 438 6.0 7300 718 10.6 6752.5 600 12.4 4836.3

2003 448 6.1 7300 780 11.3 6908.9 914 13.0 7039.3

2004 152 2.1 7228.5 636 9.1 7006 158 2.2 7137

Analyses of the number of programming hours scheduled for children’s

programs by all three stations during the four-year period reviewed gives a

slightly different pictured compared to the changes in the number of different

children’s programs scheduled by each station (see Table 2). The highest number

of hours scheduled for children’s programs within a year was 914 hours by TV3 in

2003. This was the year when TV3 scheduled the second highest number of

programs during the four-year period studied. The lowest number of hours

scheduled for children’s programs within a year was 152 hours in 2004 by GTV.

However, in 2004 GTV had the second lowest number of programs scheduled

125
among the three stations and TV3 had the lowest number of different programs

scheduled. For the four-year study period Metro TV had the highest number of

hours (2,830 hours) scheduled for children’s programs, followed by TV3 (1,942

hours) and then by GTV (1,495 hours). On the average, during the period studied,

for every 60 minutes of children’s programs scheduled by Metro TV, TV3

scheduled 41 minutes of children’s programs with GTV scheduling only 30

minutes of children’s programming.

The number of hours GTV scheduled for children’s programs declined

each year except in 2003 when it actually increased by 2% to 448 hours. Starting

with 457.2 hours of scheduled children’s programs in 2001, there was a slight

decrease of 4% in 2002 resulting in 438 hours of scheduled children’s programs.

The highest rate of change was in 2004 when GTV scheduled 152 hours of

children’s programs representing a 66% decline from the previous year’s figure.

Metro TV scheduled 696 hours of children’s programs in 2001. This

increased by 3% in 2002 to 718 hours of scheduled children’s programs. In 2003,

Metro TV increased the number of hours scheduled for children’s programs by

9% compared to the previous year to 780 hours. The number of hours scheduled

for children’s programs by Metro TV declined by 18% in 2004 to 636 hours.

TV3 showed more dramatic changes in the number of hours scheduled for

children’s programs during the four-year period studied. In 2001 TV3 scheduled

270 hours of children’s programs. The number of hours scheduled for children’s

program increased by 122% in 2002 to 600 hours. This peaked in 2003 with a

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52% increase in the number of hours scheduled for children’s programs but

dropped steeply by 83% to 158 hours in 2004.

Imported and Locally Produced Children’s Programs

Research question 3 sought to determine how the conduct of children’s

television programmers impacted the diversity of children’s programs in Ghana.

The three stations, GTV, Metro TV and TV3 as mentioned earlier broadcast 89

unique titles of children’s programs during the four-year period studied. A

majority of these programs (76%) were imported while 20% were produced

locally.

TV3 had the highest number of unique titles of imported children’s

programs scheduled for broadcast during 2001-2004 with 44 children’s

programs. GTV on the other hand had seven imported children’s programs

representing the lowest number of imported children’s programs scheduled for

broadcast by the three stations. Table 3, provides information on the total

number of unique titles of imported and locally produced children’s programs

available during the four-year period studied. Ninety-four percent of the

children’s programs scheduled for broadcast by TV3 were imported. Metro TV

also had a high proportion (81%) of imported children’s programs scheduled for

broadcast during the four-year period studied. Only GTV had a lower proportion

of imported children’s programs (33%) scheduled for broadcast compared to a

significant number of locally produced children’s programs (62%) during the

period studied.

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Table 3.
Total number of unique titles of imported and locally produced children’s
television programs listed in broadcast schedules of GTV, Metro TV, and TV3
from 2001 through 2004.

Local Imported Unknown

Production Program Source Total/Station
No. % No. % No. %
GTV 13 62 7 33 1 5 21

Metro TV 4 15 21 81 1 4 26

TV3 2 4 44 94 1 2 47

One out of five of the total number of children’s programs scheduled for

broadcast by GTV, Metro TV and TV3 during the study period was a local

production. GTV had the highest number of locally produced children’s programs

scheduled for broadcast during the four-year period studied (13 programs

representing 62% of its total scheduled children’s programs) while TV3 had the

lowest number of locally produced children’s programs with two programs

representing 4% of its total number of scheduled programs. Metro TV scheduled

a total of four children’s programs during the four-year period studied

representing 15% of its total scheduled children’s programs.

Imported children’s programs were scheduled 67% of the time assigned to

children programs by the three television stations during the period studied. TV3

assigned the highest number of hours to imported children’s programs on its

schedule – 1,796 hours representing 92% of the total time the station assigned to

children’s programs during the four years reviewed for this dissertation. Metro

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TV had a total of 1,782 hours of scheduled imported children programs

representing 63% of the total time assigned to children’s programs by the station.

GTV had the lowest number of hours scheduled (635.2 hours) for imported

children’s programs amongst the three stations. This represented 42% of the total

time assigned to children’s programs by GTV during the period reviewed.

Although GTV had the most locally produced children’s programs over the

four-year period studied, Metro TV assigned more hours (1,024 hours) to locally

produced children’s programs in its schedule over the four-year period compared

to GTV who designated only 840 hours to scheduling locally produced children’s

programs. Nonetheless, GTV assigned a greater proportion of time over the four-

year period to locally produced children’s programs (56%) compared to Metro TV

(36%). TV3 assigned 6% of the time allotted to children’s programs over the four-

year period to locally produced children’s programs.

There were more unique titles of imported programs listed on the

schedules of all the television stations combined for each year during the period

studied (see Figure 6). In 2001, 70% of all the unique program titles scheduled

for broadcast by the three television stations were imported children’s programs.

This increased in 2002 where 77% of the unique program titles of children’s

programming made available to children by the three broadcast stations were all

imported content. This dropped slightly to 73% in 2003 and declined further to

its lowest proportion of 44% of unique titles of imported children’s programming

on all three stations combined.

129
 60

50 49

40 41
Programs

30
26
20
13 13 12
10 10 10

1 1 2
0 0
2001 2002 2003 2004
Year

Local Production Imported Program Unknown

Figure 6. Total number of unique titles of locally produced and imported

children’s television programs scheduled each year by (all three stations) GTV,
Metro TV, and TV3 from 2001 through 2004.

Similarly, more time was assigned each year to imported programs during

the period studied by all the stations combined except in 2004 where the 540

hours (57%) assigned to locally produced children’s programs was more than the

402 hours allotted to imported programs (see Figure 7). Although the number of

hours made available for imported children’s programs was about the same in

2001 (1,185.2 hours) and 2002 (1,220 hours) the proportion of time scheduled

for imported children’s programs was 84% in 2001 declining to 67% in 2002 and

2003.

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 1600

1400

1200

1000
Hours

800

600

400

200

0
2001 2002 2003 2004
Year

Local Production Imported Programs

Figure 7. Number of hours assigned to locally produced and imported children’s

television programs yearly by (all three stations) GTV, Metro TV, and TV3 from
2001 through 2004.

For 2001, all the hours of locally produced children’s programs were

scheduled by GTV. Metro TV scheduled the highest number of locally produced

children’s programs for each of the remaining years. In 2002, Metro TV’s

schedule for children’s programs accounted for 53% of the time available for

locally produced children’s programs by all three stations compared with 37% by

GTV and 10% by TV3. In 2003, 48% of the time allocated to locally produced

children’s programs by all the three stations was scheduled by Metro TV

compared with 45% by GTV and 7% by TV3. Metro TV scheduled 76 of the time

available for locally produced programs compared with 19% by GTV and 5% by

TV3.
131
 The most consistent pattern with regards to the scheduling of imported

children’s programs was that GTV for each of the four years studied dedicated the

least amount of time for imported children’s programs – 18% in 2001, 20% in

2002, 9% in 2003, and 11% in 2004. Metro TV and TV3 each dedicated the

largest proportion of time for imported children’s programs for two different

years. In 2001 and 2004 Metro TV accounted for 59% and 56% respectively of the

total time scheduled for imported children’s programs by all three stations

combined while TV3 did the same with 44% and 61% of the total time scheduled

for imported children’s programs in 2002 and 2003 respectively.

The amount of time designated for imported and locally produced

children’s program broadcast by GTV, Metro TV and TV3 varied by year (see

Table 4). In 2001, GTV designated about the same number of hours of imported

children’s programs (49.9%) as locally produced children’s programs (50.1%).

The number of hours (196 hours) as well as the proportion of time (45%)

designated for locally produced children’s programs by GTV declined in 2002

while the number of hours (242 hours) and the proportion of time (55%)

designated for imported children’s programs increased. There was a change in

trend in 2003 as the number of hours designated for locally produced children’s

programs (320 hours) surpassed the number of hours allocated for imported

children’s programs (128 hours). This change was largely influenced by the

broadcast of Distance Education, a curriculum-based educational program for

high school students. The total number of hours of children’s programs

scheduled by GTV declined in 2004 to 152 hours of programming however, the

132
station scheduled more locally produced programs (70%) compared to imported

children’s programs (30%).

Table 4.
Number of hours scheduled for imported and locally produced children’s
television programs by GTV, Metro TV, and TV3 from 2001 through 2004.

GTV Metro TV TV3

Origin of
Year Production Hours % Hours % Hours %
2001 Local 218 49.9 0 0 0 0

Imported 219.2 50.1 696 100 270 100

Total 437.2 696 270

2002 Local 196 44.7 276 38.4 53.2 9

Imported 242 55.3 440 61.6 536.8 91

Total 438 716 590

2003 Local 320 71.4 336 44.4 48 5.3

Imported 128 28.6 420 55.6 858 94.7

Total 448 756 906

2004 Local 106 69.7 412 64.8 26 16.5

Imported 46 30.3 224 35.2 132 83.5

Total 152 636 158

133
 All of the scheduled children’s programs for broadcast by Metro TV in

2001 were imported. However, in 2002, 38% of the time assigned to children’s

programs by Metro TV was designated for locally produced programs. This

increased to 44% of scheduled children’s programs in 2003. Metro TV scheduled

two locally produced children’s programs for broadcast in 2002 and 2003. These

were School TV, a curriculum-based educational program for high school

students, and Smash TV a variety show for children 12 years and older.

In 2004, Metro TV increased the number of hours scheduled for locally

produced children’s programs to 412 hours representing 65% of the time

allocated to children’s programs that year. This was the highest amount of time

allotted for locally produced children’s programs within a year by Metro TV and

by any of the three stations. The introduction of the program Metro Kids in 2004

contributed to the increase in the number of hours scheduled for locally produced

children’s programs broadcast by Metro TV.

TV3 however, did not schedule any locally produced children’s programs

in 2001. TV3 consistently assigned a greater proportion of children content time

allocation to imported programs during the four-year period studied compared to

any of the other stations. In 2002, 91% of TV3’s scheduled children’s programs

were imported. In 2003 TV3 increased the number of its scheduled imported

children’s programs to 95% which decreased slightly to 84% in 2004. Kyekyekule

Kids was the most consistently scheduled locally produced children program

broadcast in 2002, 2003, and 2004 while Youth Quake another locally produced

children’s program was regularly scheduled in 2002 and 2003 by TV3.

134
Formats

Out of the 89 unique titles of children’s programs listed in the schedules of

the broadcast stations from 2001 through 2004, 45% were non-animated,

another 43% were animated, 3% were mixed animation/non-animation or

puppets/non-animation and 2% were programs using puppets. The type of

program for 7% of the unique children’s program titles could not be identified

because of insufficient information on the programs.

The three broadcast stations scheduled varying amounts of the different

types of programs. Table 5, provides data on the number of types of program

each station scheduled during the four year study period. TV3 scheduled the

highest number of unique titles of both animation (n=25) and non-animation

(n=16) children’s programs during the four-year period. Metro TV scheduled the

second highest number of unique titles of animated programs (n=9) while GTV

had the second highest number of unique titles of scheduled non-animation

children’s programs (n=15). GTV, Metro TV, and TV3 all had one program with

mixed formats listed in their broadcast schedules while Metro TV and TV3 listed

an additional program each with puppets during the four-year reviewed.

The proportion of children’s programs based on the type of program

differed for each station when the total number of scheduled programs for each

station during the four-year period was examined. About seven out of ten unique

children’s program titles scheduled for broadcast by GTV were non-animation

with 20% consisting of animated programs. One of two unique children’s

program titles scheduled for broadcast by Metro TV from 2001 through 2004

135
were non-animation with animated programs making up 35% of the total number

of unique titles. About one out of two of total unique program titles scheduled for

broadcast by TV3 during the four-year study period were animation programs

with non-animation children’s programs making up 35% of total unique

children’s program titles scheduled by this station.

Table 5.

Total number of unique titles of different types of children’s television programs

listed in broadcast schedules of GTV, Metro TV, and TV3 for the 2001 through
2004 period studied.

Non-
Animation Animation Puppets Mixed Unknown
No. % No. % No. % No. % No. %
GTV 4 19 15 71 0 0 1 5 1 5

Metro TV 9 35 13 50 1 4 1 4 2 8

TV3 25 54 16 35 1 2 1 2 3 7

The proportion of time assigned to each type of program by all the stations

varied each year. Figure 8, provides information on the proportion of time

assigned to each type of program as a percentage of total time available for

children’s programs on all the broadcast stations for each of the years studied.

The lowest proportion of time for scheduled non-animation programs in a

particular year was 33% in 2001 while the highest proportion of time scheduled

for non-animation programs was 66% in 2004. For 2002 and 2003 roughly the
136
same proportion of time was assigned to animation and non-animation programs

when all the programs scheduled for broadcast by the three stations are taken

together. At least 40% of time scheduled with children’s programs by all the three

broadcast stations each year featured animation programs except for 2004 where

only 24% of total time made available for children’s programs by all three

stations was designated for animated programs. Other than the 2001 period

where 24% of the total time scheduled with children’s programs featured

programs with puppets, more than 85% of the time made available to children’s

programs by all three broadcast stations featured animated or non-animated

programs.

70 66

60

50 45 46 44 43
40
Percentage

40
33
30 24 24
20
11
10 7 5
3 4
0 1 1 0 1 1
0
2001 2002 2003 2004
Year

animation non‐animation puppets mixed Unknown

Figure 8. Yearly changes in the proportion of time allocated to different types of

children’s television programs by (all three stations) GTV, Metro TV, and TV3
from 2001 through 2004.
137
 About half of the time made available to children’s programs in 2001 and

2002 featured non-animation programs increasing to 70% of the total time

designated for children’s programs in 2003 and 2004. Metro TV also used more

than half the time allocated to children’s programs on its broadcast for non-

animated programming each year except for 2001 when programs with a mixed

format (45%) dominated the schedule. TV3 consistently filled its schedule with a

lesser number of non-animated programs compared to animated programs. More

than half of the time allocated to children’s programs each year featured

animated programs except for 2004 where 47% of the time available to children’s

programs that year featured animated programs. TV3 also used 18% and 24% of

the total time available for children’s programs in 2002 and 2003 respectively to

schedule programs with puppets and another 27% in 2004 to schedule children’s

programs with a mixed format.

138
Table 6.
Number of hours allocated yearly to different types of children’s television
programs by GTV, Metro TV, and TV3 from 2001 through 2004.

Station Year Animation Non- Puppets Mixed Unkno

Animation wn
Hrs. % Hrs. % Hrs. % Hrs. % Hrs. %
GTV 2001 163 36 246 54 0 0 28 6 20 4

2002 210 48 212 48 0 0 16 4 0 0

2003 120 27 328 73 0 0 0 0 0 0

2004 46 30 106 70 0 0 0 0 0 0

Metro TV 2001 254 36 126 18 0 0 316 45 0 0

2002 280 39 416 58 22 3 0 0 0 0

2003 294 38 438 56 24 3 0 0 24 3

2004 104 16 478 75 10 2 0 0 44 7

TV3 2001 148 55 96 36 0 0 0 0 26 10

2002 302 50 178 30 106 18 0 0 14 2

2003 530 58 160 18 216 24 0 0 8 1

2004 74 47 42 27 0 0 42 27 0 0

Educational and Entertainment Content

The total number of children’s programs scheduled by the broadcast

stations with primarily educational or entertainment content varied each year.

However, for each of the years during the period reviewed the number of

children’s programs with entertainment content was more than the number of
139
programs with primarily educational content. Table 7, provides the data on the

number of programs and hours of children’s programs with educational and/or

entertainment content scheduled for broadcast by the three television stations.

For 2001 and 2002, about 63% of children’s programs available on the broadcast

schedules of the three television stations combined had an entertainment focus.

The proportion of time scheduled for programs with entertainment content

declined to about 45% in 2003 and 2004.

Educational children’s programs were available to children 31% of the time

scheduled for children’s programs by all three stations in 2001 decreasing to 23%

of the time available for children’s programs in 2002. The highest proportion of

time assigned to educational programs by the three stations combined was 37%

in 2003 followed by a decline to 32% in 2004. There were programs on the

broadcast schedule that were neither curriculum-based educational programs nor

purely entertainment programs and these programs added to the variety of

educational and entertainment content available to children each year. Other

than the year 2001 when about 3% of airtime given to children’s programs were

scheduled for these mixed (entertainment and educational) programs about 13-

14% of time available for children’s programs were filled with mixed programs

from 2002 through 2004.

GTV scheduled more time for entertainment children’s programs in 2001

(61%) and 2002 (73%) than they did for educational children’s programs, which

represents 23% and 21% of time scheduled for children’s programs in 2001 and

2002 respectively. The proportion of time assigned to entertainment and

140
educational programs switched in 2003 with more time scheduled for

educational children’s programs (55%) compared with 32% for entertainment

children’s programs. More time (28%) was scheduled for educational children’s

programs than entertainment children’s program (18%) by GTV in 2004. For

2004 GTV assigned about 50% of time scheduled for children’s programs to

shows that had a mix of entertainment and educational content or religious

content.

Over 80% of the time that Metro TV allocated to children’s programs for

each of the years studied was dedicated to either educational or entertainment

children’s programs. Metro TV also consistently scheduled more entertainment

compared to educational children’s programs for each of the four years studied.

The highest proportion of time assigned to children’s entertainment programs in

any given year by Metro TV was 64% in 2004 while the highest proportion of

time assigned to educational children’s programs was 45% in 2001.

141
Table 7.
Number of unique program titles and programming hours of educational and
entertainment children’s television programs scheduled by GTV, Metro TV, and
TV3 from 2001 through 2004

GTV Metro TV TV3 All Stations

Hour No.
Year Category No.a Hours No.a s a Hours No.a Hours %
Educational 4 104 1 316 1 26 6 446 31.3
2001
Entertainment 7 278.4 10 380 11 244 28 902.4 63.4

Mixed 3 44.8 0 0 0 0 3 44.8 3.1

Other 2 30 0 0 0 0 2 30 2.1

2002 Educational 5 94 1 212 1 106 7 412 23.5

Entertainment 7 318 12 460 30 332 49 1110 63.2

Mixed 2 26 3 46 4 152 8b 224 12.8

Other 0 0 0 0 1 10 1 10 .6

2003 Educational 5 246 1 252 1 302 7 800 37.3

Entertainment 6 142 12 464 21 356 39 962 44.9

Mixed 1 24 2 40 3 248 6 312 14.6

Other 2 36 1 24 1 8 4 68 3.1

2004 Educational 2 42 1 260 0 0 3 302 31.9

Entertainment 1 28 7 322 3 90 11 440 46.5

Mixed 2 36 1 10 2 68 5 114 12.1

Other 2 46 1 44 0 0 3 90 9.9

a Number of unique program titles.

b One program was scheduled by two stations as reflected in the total number of
discrete programs

TV3 had the lowest proportion of time assigned to educational children’s

programs of the three stations in any given year. In 2004 for example TV3 did

not list any children’s educational program for broadcast on its schedule. In

142
2001, the station assigned 10% of the time for children’s programs on its schedule

to educational programs and 90% to entertainment programs. The highest

proportion of time on its schedule designated for educational children’s programs

was 33% in 2003. TV3 scheduled more time – as high as 90% in 2001 and a low

of 66% in 2002 – with primarily entertainment programs or programs that had a

mix of educational and entertainment content for most of the years studied.

Audience Segmentation

Out of the 89 unique children’s program titles scheduled for broadcast

between 2001 and 2004, 40% were targeted at six to eleven year olds, 29% were

targeted at children 12 years and older, and 6% targeted children five years and

younger. Some of the programs targeting children 5 years and younger were in

order of frequency, Teletubbies, Tweenies, Kids Say the Darndest Things, Care

Bears and Rugrats. Examples of programs for children six to eleven years old on

the three stations were, “Generic Cartoons,” Batman, Scooby Doo, Sesame

Street, Men in Black, Kwasasa Show Time, Fun World, Hobby Time, and

Kyekyekule Kids. Examples of programs on the schedules of the three stations

for children 12 years and older include, School TV, Distance Learning, Smash

TV, Kejetia, Flintstones, Swat Kats, Nick Freno, Youth Quake, and X-Attitude.

For 23% of the programs the target audience could not be determined and

were coded as “unknown.” Half of the children’s programs coded as “unknown”

with regards to the age of the target audience were scheduled to be broadcast by

TV3. About 30% of these programs were scheduled for broadcast by GTV and

another 18% were scheduled for broadcast by Metro TV.

143
 The highest number of programs for children 12 years and older was

scheduled for broadcast by Metro TV. The highest number of programs for six to

eleven year olds was scheduled by TV3. Most of the stations had very few or no

programs for children five years and younger. GTV had one children’s program

(Toddlers Time) for that age group while Metro TV had no programs scheduled.

TV3 had five scheduled programs targeting children five years and younger.

The highest proportion of time scheduled for programs targeting a specific

age group by the three stations during the period studied was by Metro TV. Metro

TV dedicated 58% of the time scheduled for children’s programs to programs

primarily targeting children 12 years and older. The highest proportion of the

time assigned to programs targeting children six to eleven years old among the

three stations was scheduled by GTV. GTV dedicated 53% of the time scheduled

for children’s programs during the four-year study period to this age group. For

programs targeting children five years and younger, the highest proportion of

time was provided by TV3 with 41% of the time allocated to children’s programs.

The analysis shows that for TV3, the highest proportion of time was scheduled for

programs targeting children five years and younger. For GTV it was programs

targeting children six to eleven years old that received the highest amount of time

on its schedule while Metro TV programs targeted children 12 years and older .

The number of hours of scheduled programs targeting different age groups

varied by station over the period studied. Table 8, provides the breakdown for the

changes in the number of hours scheduled for programs targeting children of

different age groups during the period studied. GTV scheduled 36 hours of

144
programs for children five years and younger in 2001 representing 8% of time

scheduled for children’s programs that year. This decreased to 16 hours in 2002

representing 4% of time scheduled for children’s programs that year. For the

subsequent years 2003 and 2004, GTV did not schedule any programs for

children five years and younger.

The proportion of scheduled children’s programs on GTV in 2001

targeting children six to eleven years old was 70%. This increased in 2002 to 72%

of the time scheduled for children’s programs. In 2003, the amount of time

allocated to programs for children six to eleven years old decreased to 38% and

dropped further to 30% in 2004. In 2003, the amount of time allocated to

programs targeting children 12 years and older by GTV increased from 15% in

2002 to 55% and dropped slightly to 46% of time scheduled for children’s

programs by the station.

145
Table 8.
Number of hours of scheduled children’s television programs targeting different
age groups by GTV, Metro TV, and TV3 from 2001 through 2004.

GTV Metro TV TV3 All Stations

Year Age group Hours % Hours % Hours % No. %
2001 5 & younger 36 8 0 0 26 10 62 4.4

6-11 321 70 186 27 108 40 615 43.2

12+ 62 14 160 23 60 22 282 19.8

Unknown 38 8 350 50 76 28 464 32.6

2002 5 & younger 16 4 0 0 222 37 238 13.6

6-11 316 72 186 26 236 39 738 42

12+ 66 15 508 71 94 16 668 38

Unknown 40 9 24 3 48 8 112 6.4

2003 5 & younger 0 0 0 0 544 60 544 25.5

6-11 168 38 188 24 218 24 574 26.8

12+ 248 55 542 70 118 13 908 42.4

Unknown 32 7 50 6 32 3 114 5.3

2004 5 & younger 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

6-11 46 30 206 32 68 43 320 33.8

12+ 70 46 430 68 0 0 500 52.9

Unknown 36 24 0 0 90 57 126 13.3

Metro TV did not schedule programs specifically targeted to the five years

and younger age groups during the four year period analyzed. It must be noted
146
that in 2001 about 50% of the time scheduled for children’s programs consisted

of programs where the target age could not be determined for analysis. For the

programs where the target age could be determined, 26% of the time was

allocated to programs targeting children six to eleven years of age and the other

23% of the time was allotted to programs targeting children 12 years and older.

The proportion of time scheduled with programs targeting six to eleven year olds

remained the same (26%) in 2002 and decreased in 2003 to 24% before

increasing to 32% in 2004. The proportion of time scheduled for programs

targeting children 12 years and older by Metro was the highest among the three

age groups for all the years studied. For 2002 and 2003, about 70% of the time

scheduled with children’s programs by Metro TV was devoted to programs for

children 12 years and older. This amount declined slightly to 68% in 2004.

TV3 increased the proportion of time devoted to children’s programs for

children five years and younger from 10% in 2001 to 60% in 2003. However no

time was allocated to programs for children five years and younger in 2004. The

highest proportion of time (about 40%) for children’s programs by TV3 was

allocated to programs targeting the six to eleven age-group in 2001 and 2002.

This changed in 2003 when 24% of the time for scheduled children’s programs

was targeted at the six to eleven age-group. This increased to 43% in 2004. Time

devoted to programs for children 12 years and older by TV3 increased from 60

hours in 2001 to 118 hours in 2003. Nonetheless, the proportion of time

scheduled for programs devoted to children 12 years and older declined from

22% in 2001 to 13% in 2003. No programs for children 12 years and older were

147
scheduled by TV3 in 2004. It must be noted that in 2001, 28% of the time was

scheduled by TV3 for children’s programs; however, the target age could not be

determined. In 2004 the target age for programs scheduled by TV3 during 57% of

the time could not be determined.

Program Scheduling

Children’s programs were available to children each day of the week when

the schedules of the three broadcasting stations were considered together for

each of the years in the study period. Figure 9, provides data on the proportion of

time scheduled for children’s programs by the three television stations on the

different days of the week during the four-year period studied. Children were

more likely to see programs for them on Mondays and Tuesdays than any other

days of the week. More than a third of the time for children’s programs by all the

television stations was scheduled on Monday and Tuesday for each of the four

years studied. Friday was the weekday with the lowest proportion time assigned

to children’s programs for each of the years in the study period when the

schedules of the television stations were combined. The day with the lowest

proportion of time scheduled for children’s programs for each of the years in the

study period was Sunday. With a low proportion of 3% of total time scheduled

with children’s programs in 2001 to a high of 10% of total time with scheduled

children’s programs in 2004. Taken together, the weekends accounted for less

than 20% of the total time with scheduled children’s programs for each of the

years studied except 2004 when it was 23%.

148
 25

20

15
Percent

10

0
2001 2002 2003 2004
Year

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

Figure 9. Proportion of time of scheduled children’s television programs on

different days of the week by (all three stations) GTV, Metro TV, and TV3 from
2001 through 2004.

In order to analyze the time of day children’s programs are most

frequently scheduled, the broadcast day (6 a.m. - 9 p.m.) was divided into five

three-hour segments. Figure 10, provides data on how frequently each segment of

the day was scheduled with children’s programs as a proportion of the total

programming hours assigned to children’s programs by the three television

stations. The most frequently scheduled time of day as determined by the number

of programming hours assigned to children’s programs was the 3 p.m. - 6 p.m.

149
segment of the day. This time segment was consistently the most frequent time of

day when the three television stations scheduled children’s programs during each

of the four years reviewed. In 2002, 64% of all the programming hours of

children’s programs were scheduled between 3 p.m.-6 p.m. The second highest

proportion of time for programs scheduled between 3 p.m. – 6 p.m. was 57% in

2004. Hardly any children’s programs were scheduled after 9 p.m. About the

same proportion of programming hours were allocated to programs scheduled

between 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. and 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. for three out of the four years

reviewed. In 2002, the proportion of the total programming hours of the three

television stations assigned programs scheduled between 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. was 7%

while 17% of the total programming hours was allocated to programs scheduled

between 12 p.m. -3 p.m. More programming hours were found during the 6 a.m. -

9 p.m. for scheduling children’s programs than the 6 p.m. - 9 p.m. segment of the

day.

GTV did not schedule any children’s programs during the 6am-9am

segment for all the four years reviewed for this dissertation. Metro TV allocated

13% of its total children’s programming hours in 2001 to children’s programs

scheduled between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. This reduced to 1% in 2002 and stopped

scheduling programs during the 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. segment in the subsequent years

studied. TV3 did not schedule any children’s program between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m.

in 2001. It started doing so in 2002 devoting 24% of its total programming hours

for that year to programs scheduled between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. This increased to

33% in 2003 and declined to 25% of total children’s programming hours in 2004.

150
 70
64

60 57

50 48
46

40
Percent

30

20 21
20 17 17 17
14 14 13
11
10 8 7
6 5 4 3 4
1 0 0 0
0
2001 2002 2003 2004
Year

6am-8:59am 9am-11:59am 12 noon-2:59pm

3pm-5:59pm 6pm-8:59pm after 9pm

Figure 10. Proportion of time of scheduled children’s programs during different

times slots of the day by (all three stations) GTV, Metro TV, and TV3 each year
from 2001 through 2004.

GTV scheduled 11% of its total programming hours in 2001 between 9 a.m.

and 12 p.m. This increased to a high of 48% in 2003 and decreased slightly to

33% of its total children’s programming hours in 2004. Metro TV scheduled 34%

of its total programming hours in 2001 between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. This however

decreased to less the 10% of its total children’s programming hours in each of the
151
subsequent years reviewed for this study. TV3 scheduled about 10% of its total

programming hours for 2002 and 2003 between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. increasing to

16% in 2004. For 2003 and 2004, TV3 scheduled more than 40% of its total

children’s programming hours between 6 a.m. and 12 p.m.

GTV scheduled over 80% of its total children’s programming hours in

2001 and 2002 between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. This decreased to about half its

total children’s programming hours in 2003 and 2004. Metro TV consistently

scheduled 57% of total children’s programming hours between the hours of 3:00

p.m. and 6:00 p.m. from 2002 through 2004. The highest proportion of

programming hours TV3 scheduled between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. was 73% in

2001. This declined to a low of 39% of total children’s programming hours in

2003 before increasing to 58% in 2004.

Locally Produced Programs

Research question four sought to determine the differences in children

programs produced by local content creators and broadcast by content

programmers in Ghana. There were 18 unique titles of locally produced children’s

programs scheduled for broadcast during the four year period studied. Over 70%

of the unique titles of locally produced children’s programs were produced by the

television stations. The other 30% were produced by independent content

creators or in partnership with one of the television stations. Two independent

content creators were responsible for the locally produced programs that did not

come out of the production studios of the television stations. GTV produced

approximately two of three while Metro TV was responsible for about 23% of the
152
unique titles produced by the production studios of the television stations in

Ghana during the four year study period.

A total of 28% of the unique titles of locally produced children’s program

were schedule for each of the four years in the study period. Another 28% were

scheduled during three of the four years studied while 17% were scheduled during

two of the four years studied. The remaining 28% of unique titles of locally

produced children’s programs were not scheduled for more than a year by

broadcast stations. Half of the locally produced children’s programs scheduled

for three or more years by the broadcast stations were produced by GTV. The

other half was produced by Metro TV (20%) and the two independent content

creators (30%).

The different formats of locally produced children’s programs scheduled

for broadcast by all the television stations as a proportion of available unique

titles were: variety/magazine (33%), hosted (28%), with instructor/teacher (11%),

quiz (11%), drama (6%), and game show (6%). The most available format of

locally produced children’s program was the instructor-led educational program.

This format was scheduled 40% of the time available for locally produced

programs in 2002, 62% in 2003 and 48% in 2004. The second most frequently

scheduled format for locally produced program was the variety/magazine format,

which accounted for 27% of time scheduled for locally produced programs in

2002, 22% in 2003 and 33% in 2004.

The quiz show was the highest scheduled children’s program in 2001

accounting for 35% of the time scheduled for locally produced children’s

153
programs. This dropped to about 6% of all time scheduled for locally produced

children’s programs each year from 2002 through 2004. Children’s programs

featuring an adult host made up 33% of the all time available for locally produced

children’s programs in 2001. The frequency of such shows dropped to 13% in

2002 and declined further to 5% for both 2003 and 2004.

70
62
60

50 48
40
Percent

40
33 35 33
30 27
22
20 14
13 13
10 5 5 5 6 5 3 5 6
3 3 5 5
0
0
2001 2002 2003 2004
Year

drama game show hosted quiz variety with instructor/teacher

Figure 11. Proportion of time of scheduled children’s television formats of locally

produced children’s television programs by (all three stations) GTV, Metro TV,
and TV3 each year from 2001 through 2004.

The majority of locally produced children’s programs available for

broadcast for each of the years studied had educational content except for 2001

where the majority of programs had primarily entertainment content (Figure 11).

154
The highest proportion of time given to locally-produced educational children’s

programs was 70% in 2003. These consisted primarily of instructor-led and quiz

programs based on the junior and senior secondary school (equivalent to US high

school) curriculum. Locally produced children’s programs with a primarily

entertainment content showed a consistent decline after 2001 (35%) through

2004 (25%).

80
70
70

60 55 56

50
Percent

39 40
40 35

30 25
24
20
20
10 11
7 8
10
0 0 0
0
2001 2002 2003 2004
Year
Educational Only Entertainment Only Mixed Unknown

Figure 12. Proportion of time of scheduled locally produced children’s programs

with educational or entertainment content by (all three stations) GTV, Metro TV,
and TV3 each year from 2001 to 2004.

155
 The target audience for most locally produced children’s programs was the

12-plus age group (Figure 12). Over 70% of programs available to children on

television from 2002 through 2004 had the teenage group as the primary

audience. This peaked to 86% of available locally produced children’s programs

in 2003. The next highest available locally produced children’s programs catered

to the 6-11 age-group accounting for 25% of programs in 2002, 13% in 2003, and

18% in 2004. In 2001 however, the most available (72%) locally produced

children’s programs targeted the 6-11 age group. Children 5 years and younger

were the least targeted group in terms of available locally produced children’s

programs produced with that age group as the primary target audience.

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 `

100
90 86
79
80 72 71
70
60
Percent

50
40
30 24 25
18
20 13
10 4 5 3
0 0 0 1 0
0
2001 2002 2003 2004
Year

2-5 years 6-11 years 12+ unknown

Figure 13. Proportion of time of scheduled locally produced children’s television

programs for different age groups by (all three stations) GTV, Metro TV, and TV3
each from 2001 through 2004.

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CHAPTER 7: CHILDREN’S TELEVISION STAKEHOLDERS IN GHANA

The focus of research question five was to determine how the market

structure influenced the conduct of content programmers and content creators in

Ghana. Results and analysis of the in-depth interviews are used to answer this

research question. This is because although data from the content analysis

provided evidence of the level of diversity of children’s programs in Ghana, it was

limited in explaining why or how market structure influenced what children’s

programs were available. The in-depth interviews with media professionals

provide an industry perspective on why and how market structure influenced the

conduct of content programmers and content creators.

Influence of Market Structure on Conduct of Content Programmers

The first aspect of market structure that influences conduct of content

programmers is product differentiation. The media professionals interviewed

mentioned how their goal to uniquely position their company in the market and

in the minds of its audiences influenced their selection and scheduling of

programs. Programming by the television broadcast stations was influenced by

their position as a private or public broadcasting station. GTV’s commitment to

public-service broadcasting as a public broadcaster influenced programming

decisions such as providing children’s programs that were locally produced

despite the prohibitive costs involved. GTV considered providing children’s

programming to be in line with its general goals of informing, educating, and

entertaining the public (Kuwornu, personal interview). Furthermore, as the

station with a national reach, GTV’s programming has sought to satisfy its
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national audience. There were children’s programs that featured children from all

over the country in different episodes. Although GTV is also a commercial station

and was expected to raise revenues through advertising and other sales efforts,

programming decisions were not solely based on profit motives but on public-

service interests as well.

TV3 and Metro TV on the other hand indicated how as private commercial

stations programming decisions were influenced by the need to make profit. TV3

and Metro TV typically did not produce children’s programs unless they had a

sponsor to bear the cost of producing and broadcasting the particular program.

As private stations, they were more interested in programs that attracted large

audiences such as entertainment children’s programs and cartoons. It is

important to note however that, in spite of the fact that Metro TV is not a public

broadcaster, it still valued corporate social responsibility and upheld this with the

policy of allocating about five percent of its airtime to social services (Haruna,

personal interview). Some of this time was used to broadcast School TV an

educational children’s program based on the high school curriculum.

The three broadcast stations differed in the type of audience they targeted.

As mentioned earlier, GTV as a national public station targeted a broad audience

segmented by age. The three age categories of young people GTV targeted were

children one to five years, children six to fifteen years and young people eighteen

years and older who were considered as the youth audience. GTV scheduled

programs to target the different audience segments including children’s

programs for the one-to-five and six-to-fifteen year groups. TV3, as a private

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commercial broadcaster tried to be all inclusive in order to obtain a mass

audience for advertisers who wanted to target different demographics. The

station considered its children’s audience to be children between the ages of four

and fifteen years. Metro TV considered its primary children’s audience to be from

five years to eighteen years and provided programming suitable for children

within this age range. GTV and TV3 broadcast more programs for preschoolers

than Metro TV because their targeted children’s audience consisted of children

younger than five years. The positioning of the three stations in the market

through product differentiation and audience segmentation contributed to the

diversity of children’s television programs in Ghana.

All the media professionals interviewed from the three stations mentioned

proactive strategies adopted by their stations to position themselves as child-

friendly stations programming various kinds of children’s programs. Some of the

strategies were organizational while others had to do with scheduling and

programming. The organizational strategies that supported the market

positioning of the broadcast station included organizational structures put in

place to support children’s programming. GTV for instance had a children’s

department that produced children’s programs. At GTV someone was directly

responsible for children’s programs that were scheduled. TV3 also had someone

directly responsible for children’s programs that were scheduled by the station.

At Metro TV, a programming committee decided the schedule with no particular

person responsible for children’s programs scheduled.

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 GTV adopted a more child-centered approach to producing and scheduling

children’s programs by involving children in the decision-making process. GTV

was the only station that indicated they conducted audience research using focus

groups of children to determine what children’s programs to produce and

schedule. Older children were involved in the production process not only as

actors but as contributors to the decision-making process. This was because, the

position of GTV (informed by experience with producing and scheduling

children’s programs over the years) was that children were more attracted to, and

enjoyed programs developed from an age-appropriate perspective (Amoo,

personal interview). Older children became loyal viewers of a program when they

perceived they had a voice to influence the program and/or could claim some

ownership of the program.

Another means by which the broadcast stations positioned themselves as

programming for children was through scheduling decisions. Metro TV and TV3

had a specific day part they consistently scheduled children’s programs. In

addition, other day parts were used when children’s programs became available.

Metro TV used the time between and around 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays to

schedule children’s programs. This time slot was dedicated to children’s

programming and although the programs changed on specific days of the week

during the year the station always scheduled programs targeting children. TV3

typically scheduled children’s programs around 5 p.m. on weekdays with the

rationale that children were home from school and had access to the television

before parents came home from work. GTV, at the time of the interview in July

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2005, had started a dedicated block of children’s programming on Saturday

mornings. The two-hour segment before noon on Saturdays was scheduled with a

variety of children’s programs targeting the different children age groups.

Decisions to schedule children’s programs were based on interrelated

factors including availability, cost, financing, policy, and organizational goals or

mission. Availability of children’s programs was related to the cost of producing

or acquiring these programs. All the media professionals interviewed commented

on the prohibitive costs associated with producing or acquiring children’s

programs. Children’s programming suffered, especially with the private stations,

when there were no advertisers or sponsors willing to bear the cost of producing

or broadcasting a children’s program. Many times children’s programs were

removed from the schedule and replaced with programs that brought in more

revenue to the station. This practice was particularly prevalent during national

and international sporting events. The media professionals mentioned how

difficult it was to consistently maintain the time slots dedicated to children’s

programming because of lack of advertisers or sponsors to pay for children’s

programs:

Many a time these kids programs are not sponsored. So it’s been running

and when you buy them from the market they are expensive. So if you

don’t get somebody to say I’m coming to sponsor this program, it is

difficult for us to show kids programs. . . . Nobody’s prepared to put in

sponsorship for the kids belt so all programs we have been showing there

[are not sponsored or advertising supported] and since we’re to make

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 money to be able to survive, if there’s somebody who is bringing in a

program – a program which is not even meant for the kids belt but is a

program that we feel cuts across [a large audience] and the person is

willing to pay, we take out the kids program and put that one there

(Norteye, personal interview).

Financial considerations such as higher advertising rates or the long-term and

future commitment of an advertiser or program sponsor may influence the

decision to cut a children’s program from the schedule and replace it with adult

oriented programming. In most cases, children’s programs were the first to be cut

to make room for new programs on the schedules or to address budget

constraints. It took policies such as those related to corporate social

responsibility and organizational mission such as a public service mandate to

keep stations commitments to maintain children’s programs on their broadcast

schedules when it was not always financially profitable to do so.

Influence of Market Structure on Conduct of Content Creators

The conditions of market structure which influence the conduct of

children’s content creators obtained from analyzing the interviews were product

differentiation and cost structures. Content creators interviewed from production

studios of the broadcast stations and independent production houses faced

similar challenges and opportunities in the production of children’s programs in

Ghana. All of the content creators interviewed were not solely children’s program

content creators although the proportion of children’s programs produced in

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relation to the total productions by each content creator varied. GTV as the

national public broadcaster produced the most children’s programs.

Metro TV and TV3 produced less children’s programs compared to the

independent content creator Primetime Limited. Nat Lomo-Mainoo produced

one children’s program although it engaged in other productions targeting older

audiences. The advantage of creating programs for different audiences was that

the overhead costs could be spread and absorbed by revenue from more profit

generating programs. However, one disadvantage was that when production

facilities were shared, priority was given to producing the programs that

generated higher revenues (which were usually entertainment programs for older

audiences), and this affected the production schedules of children’s programs.

As a public broadcaster, GTV produced more educational children’s

programs and programs with high social values. Metro TV and TV3 produced

entertainment children’s programs and programs with high commercial value.

Primetime Limited produced educational or edutainment programs – programs

with educational content delivered in an entertaining way. The different

emphasis of the content creators reflected their positioning in the market.

Though there was some overlap, the different content creators tried to satisfy

different segments of the market. Similarly, there were differences in the target

audience the content creators produced for. GTV produced programs for a wider

age range than the other content creators, creating programs for toddlers,

preschoolers, primary, and high school children. Metro TV and TV3 largely

produced programs for the 12-17 age group. Primetime Limited produced content

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targeting the high school going age group. The decision by Metro TV, TV3, and

Primetime Limited to target the older age group was influenced by the desire of

advertisers to reach an audience who could purchase or influence the purchase of

their products.

Production decisions of the private content creators were influenced by the

availability of sponsors and advertisers. Media professionals interviewed from

Primetime Limited and Metro TV stated that they would only produce a program

when they had a commitment from an advertiser to sponsor the production and

broadcast of the program. For an independent content creator such as Primetime

Limited, the company’s clients were companies that wanted to advertize their

products by sponsoring or being associated with a children’s programs. These

companies played a decisive role in the production of children’s programs by

independent content creators. The media professional interviewed at Primetime

Limited provided an example of the critical role played by clients in the

production of children’s programs by the company:

I should mention we were going to do a program for primary kids and we

did the first two as pilots and the client has still not come back because of

budget constraints. So in a situation like this it is the client who decides

[what children’s programs are produced]. Because we don’t own a radio or

TV station, we have to get somebody to sponsor and pay for the program.

So at the end of it all, he or she decides that I want the program (Mensa-

Bonsu, personal interview).

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The media professional at Metro TV explained how the availability of advertising

sponsors contributed to the successful production of children’s programs using

their quiz program Bournvita Brain Match as an example:

We thought if we could have a quiz which could be useful and also get

Cadbury to associate their name with it – it could go a long way. Then

happily they came on board so they could finance it, [and] accommodate

the students when they come down from the outstations to do the quiz on

air . . . (Haruna, personal interview).

By paying for the production costs associated with the children’s program, the

brand name of one of Cadbury’s chocolate beverage products, Bournvita, became

associated with the name of the program and advertising for that product ran

during commercial breaks when the program was broadcast.

Although certain market conditions created opportunities to increase the

diversity of children’s programs others such as production costs and competition

for the limited number of advertisers interested in sponsoring children’s

programs constrained the diversity of children’s programs in Ghana. Finding

people to invest money in the production of children’s programs was one of the

biggest challenges content creators in Ghana faced. Content creators who

produce educational programs that are beneficial to children and have a high

social value find it difficult to raise money in the private sector to produce such

programs:

Everybody complains about falling standards of education but nobody

wants to put money into it. Everybody thinks that it’s the government’s

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 business – education belongs to the government. If right now there was a

beauty contest you will see all the companies that would want to go into it

but take it to education and nobody is interested. They want the glamour

but there is no glamour in education – that’s what they say. So nobody

wants to put money into it. Even book publishers are not interested in

supporting education. The main challenge is finance – getting people to

sponsor some of these programs. As for the ideas, there are so many of

them. If I show you the proposals we’ve sent around, and other companies

are doing the same, sending proposals to do with education but they are all

having problems finding money. (Mensa-Bonsu, personal interview)

There are very few companies who advertise on television programs

targeting children. This is because there are not many companies with products

that are used solely by children. For example, there are no major toy

manufacturing companies in Ghana that would be interested in advertising their

products to a young audience. The media professionals interviewed observed how

the non-availability of mass-marketed children’s products affected the

sponsorship and funding of children’s programs:

[T]he companies dealing with children’s products who would be interested

in marketing or are in this market are so small in size and small in

quantity as well. And also the products that are being sold are very few.

You talk of the western countries or advanced countries you have even toy

manufacturing companies like Sony and the others. They can advertise

because they know they are selling some products which the children will

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 need to see and then they can worry their parents to buy – so they can

sponsor. They also have Toys“R”Us which are the shops, the retail outlets.

We don’t have those here. We only have smaller shops that go out there,

buy some of these little things, and bring them here. They cannot really see

themselves spending so much on advertising – they will go bankrupt. So

we just rely on the food companies or food producers like Nestle or

Unilever. And these are very few so the market or the buyers of the airtime

for children’s programs are very limited. That is the reason why it is

difficult to sell (Haruna, personal interview).

Companies that manufacture products children use such as soft drinks or

breakfast foods do not always see children as their primary target. This means

that content creators of children’s programs have to compete with content

creators of programs for older audiences for the same advertising revenue:

You would be surprised that even soft drinks companies don’t really say

that children are their target. We’ve tried a couple of times to get people

interested but then they say, well they are not in our target group. When

we had “Kiddie Quiz,” Amstel Malta was sponsoring for a while and then

they said they had repositioned the brand so the kids were no longer

within the target audience (Mensa-Bonsu, personal interview).

Another influence on the conduct of content creators was that companies

that could be interested in sponsoring children’s programs either did not have big

enough advertising budgets to allow them to advertise to children through

television program sponsorship or they may have the budget to do so but then

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children’s program content creators had to show these companies how

sponsoring children’s programs would yield better returns compared to other

means of advertising and brand promotion:

Those other brands that target kids for instance Blue Band margarine, or

Nido they are not very big brands so they don’t have big budgets and they

always look at the returns. The good will is not important to a lot of them.

The bottom line is profit. They have to weigh between spending the money

on something that to them is purely altruistic – it’s not bringing direct

returns (Mensa-Bonsu, personal interview).

Occasionally, educational content creators (by virtue of the type of content

they created) were able to seek and obtain funding for programs outside of the

private commercial sector. There were few opportunities to seek sponsorship

from the government and nonprofit sectors for programs with curriculum based

educational content or content that sought to educate children about their civic

rights and responsibilities:

What we’ve really had [is] the private sector sponsoring these programs

and currently the government. The Ministry of Education is sponsoring

the Science and Math Quiz. . . . The Science and Math Quiz we’ve only

been lucky because it’s science and math and there is nothing for

secondary schools and again because it is based on the syllabus. Even now

we have a problem because we are being asked to look for sponsorship for

subsequent programs. . . . Apart from PACIPE that sponsored one

program on the environment we haven’t had any from NGOs

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 [nongovernmental organizations]. . . . Well, we’ve done some work with

UNICEF but not much. I think it was only one year in one of the Kiddie

Quiz programs we had to highlight the Convention on the rights of the

child when it was published but that is about the only time we’ve had

anything to do with UNICEF. We tried again over the years but they didn’t

show much interest. We’ve also had something to do with UNESCO – they

have this essay competition but we had it for only one year and we haven’t

had anything to do with them again (Mensa-Bonsu, personal interview).

These sources of funding outside the private sector influenced the content of

children’s programs and were more likely to be available for education oriented

programs than for primarily entertainment oriented children’s programs.

Media Policy, Advocacy and Children’s Television Programs

Media policy related to children’s television programming can be derived

from the broad guidelines in the National Media Policy that required all

broadcasting stations to be guided by some public interest objectives. Both public

and privately owned media were considered a public trust and are were expected

to serve the public interest by playing their role of informing, educating and

entertaining in pursuit of dynamic, equitable and culturally endowed national

development.

The other area of media policy related to children’s television

programming was that broadcasters were required to ensure that children were

protected from obscene and violent content and exposed to programs with high

moral values such as the value that crime did not pay and must be punished.
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Content creators associated with broadcast stations were required to produce

programs that protected children’s rights and supported children’s social and

psychological development. Media policies were so vague that most of the media

professionals acknowledged that it had little influence on the conduct of industry

players. There was no government interference in programming produced by the

stations, even with GTV the public broadcaster. Content programmers and

content creators did not identify any media policies that could interfere with their

work. One media professional commented on the effectiveness of media policy in

Ghana by saying,

It neither helps nor hinders because really, the government will not say

take the program off once it’s got to do with children but the basic thing is

that you must find sponsorship – finding money and it’s not easy finding

money. So really it’s not been a government policy not to sponsor or to

support and it is not a government policy to stop it so you just have to go

find your own money. Whatever station you go to that’s fine (Mensa-

Bonsu, personal interview).

The lack of clear or specific media policy related to children’s television

programming was one of the reasons behind the call for advocacy and regulation

of children’s media by both government and non-government organizations

seeking the interests of children in Ghana. Advocacy involving children’s media

issues were conducted by diverse groups interested in the welfare of children.

Both nongovernment and governmental agencies were involved with advocacy

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for children’s media issues although the organizations involved did not all focus

exclusively on children’s media or children’s television issues.

The lack of specific media policy concerning the creation, distribution, and

scheduling of children’s programs was the basis for advocacy for some groups in

Ghana. Advocacy groups saw the need to create the necessary awareness that

would lead policy makers to fill this policy vacuum:

We see ourselves as advocates . . . . [I]f you have gone through some

[media policy] documents you will realize that there is no clear cut policy

on children’s broadcasting or children’s media. These things have been

mentioned in sketches. If you take the Ghana Media Commission

guidelines on broadcast standards for instance, the issue of children is in

relation to content where we need to make sure that they are not exposed

to certain content but in relation to participation this has not been done . .

. . [The] government itself has not been interested in children’s issues yet

and even the broadcast institutions have no policy guidelines [for

children’s programs] and even where they exist many of the broadcasters

may know about them but may not implement them. For instance the

issue of child participation, which is now a children’s rights issue where we

are being asked that ‘broadcasters stop thinking about yourselves, make

the children’s programs more child centered, broadcasters may not be

interested. It is only a few who are interested in getting children to do that

(Akrofi-Quarcoo, personal interview).

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 The importance of the various ways in which the media could positively

impact children’s growth and development in Ghana underscored the advocacy

objectives of many of the groups interviewed:

[O]f all the media that we have in Ghana the most accessible to children is

radio and television. Radio is very intrusive – it’s everywhere . . . you sit in

a bus you hear [the] radio. Children use these facilities a lot coming into

school [or] going back home . . . children also use the television very few

have access to the newspapers, which are adult-centered, the language

may not be too easy for children to read. . . . So I think radio and television

are the most accessible to children. Radio more than television because

there is a still large percentage of Ghana’s population, which does not have

direct access to television they have to still use a neighbor’s television or

maybe television sets in community centers (Akrofi-Quarcoo, personal

interview.

Another element of the media that played an important role in a

developing country such as Ghana is its pervasiveness and reach. An educational

media program can reach children in rural areas that have a lower standard of

educational facilities and help close the educational gap between children in rural

and urban areas. The relative advantage gained by exploiting the reach of the

media was stressed by a professional involved with children’s media advocacy:

How else can we talk to young people? How else can we reach them and at

the same time provide information for adults faster than using radio and

television? It is the fastest means of reaching them. It is a means that can

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 reach them in every corner especially in Sub-Saharan Africa where roads

are bad, people cannot read newspapers, we can use the local dialect to

reflect – so I think it is the best. That is why we want to exploit it. If we get

more sophisticated young people that we can reach by mobile text through

mobile phones we will reach them. But by far it is very cheap to reach

people by radio because of the coverage (Mensah, personal interview).

Television’s audiovisual elements make it a powerful medium by which

children can learn by copying what they see. The potential of pro-social television

programs in positively influencing children’s socialization and development was

another reason for advocacy to grant children access to pro-social and

educational television programs:

Television is audiovisual – you see and you hear. And people think that

whatever you see on television is the absolute truth even though it may not

be. So television is a medium that is very attractive and it is the most

powerful medium one can lay hands on therefore by using it to teach

children, to educate children, or to entertain them they learn from it. You

see people doing things, telling you things – they listen, they learn and

they imbibe. Children like to copy and learn and I think television is the

most powerful tool (Kuwornu, personal interview).

Advocacy issues included child participation in the media production

process, children’s rights in general and as it relates to media use, and content

diversity. Advocacy regarding content diversity was not limited to program

diversity such as educational or entertainment programming but included

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program content addressing issues related to children’s welfare such as sexual

abuse, reproductive health, and children’s rights.

The driving goal of one of the most active advocacy groups in Ghana,

Women in Broadcasting was the issue of child participation in the media. The

director stressed the rationale for advocacy in her interview:

We have been interested in media and children following the signing of the

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that stipulates that the child has

every right to use the media and our interest has been in participation.

How do we get the children to participate more effectively in the media?

Because we thought that adults dominate the media. Adults decide media

content apart from production. Production is one aspect of media but

when you talk about the content, the content is adult dominated. Children

are not often seen. When children are portrayed they are stereotyped.

There is very little coverage of them and they are represented in very

negative terms but when you talk about participation too very few

participate. . . . [T]here are three stages [of production], pre-production,

the production itself and then the post production and we assume that

with the pre-production children would be made to participate in the sense

that that is where decisions are made about what they want to watch. But

we realized that children are not even thought of at the pre-production

stage. Then at the production stage where they actually go on air or in the

case of television where shooting is done, children are just made to play

the logistics role where they are taught to recite certain things and come

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 on stage and talk without them reflecting on their own realities. And then

the post-production stage where editing is done or evaluation is done

children are completely absent so all these processes lack real child

participation and we thought that we could enhance their participation in

the media by getting them involved from the very first stage to the last

stage (Akrofi-Quarcoo, personal interview).

The governmental agency involved with protecting and promoting children’s

rights, the Ghana National Commission on Children, also attempted to convince

policy makers and media professionals to adopt policies that promoted the

welfare and rights of Ghanaian children. Officials from the Ghana National

Commission on Children developed ways to educate and engage media

professionals concerning children’s rights as specified in the Ghana Children’s

Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child:

We have the Children’s Act which is quite a strong weapon that we use

because it has provisions in there that see to the survival, development,

protection, and participation of the child. So straightaway if you want to

talk about children’s involvement in the media, we would come from the

angle of participation to ensure that the child has the right to participation

to express his or her opinion. In Ghana, it is still new because our culture

always puts the child in the background to be seen and not heard so it has

been quite challenging but we’ve been quite successful . . . . [O]ur

everything is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Ghana

Children’s Act. And we will continue working for as long as there’s child

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 participation out there, for as long as we want the whole world to see and

know, and the awareness to be created about children’s issues. I think if we

empower children to say all of these things themselves the message goes

down better. And if they even come to understand these issues at their

own level in their own language they are better advocates (Addison,

personal interview).

Activities and Strategies of Nonprofit Organizations

The activities and strategies of nonprofit organizations related to children

and media were typified by the activities of a nonprofit nongovernmental

organization in Ghana called Children and Youth in Broadcasting. This was a

youth oriented organization with member’s ages ranging from 8 to 18 years. The

mission of Children and Youth in Broadcasting was to empower children by

addressing issues related to children’s rights and development. This organization

had a flagship program called Curious Minds which used the media to address

these children’s issues.

This program was significant because it addressed a number of concerns

of organizations advocating for children and media issues. Curious Minds

enabled children to discuss pertinent issues using the radio call-in program

format.

For the Curious Minds program they [the children] decide what goes on

air, the content is not what an adult will tell them. For instance where an

adult thinks that it is pure entertainment so come and recite this for me.

No they decide what they want to hear and they talk about issues like
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 affirmative action, children’s rights, budgeting and many other topics

(Akrofi-Quarcoo, personal interview).

Women in Broadcasting supported this program because it trained and allowed

children to be involved in the media production process mentioned above.

One way we advocate for children and media is with Curious Minds. We

have empowered them so that they express their own opinion without us

interfering. We organize training programs every year where children not

only those in the clubs are equipped with broadcast skills. . . . We tend to

concentrate on in-school children but out of school children can also

participate. How do they for instance walk to a broadcasting station or

walk to the media and say “I have been abused I cannot talk to my mother

but maybe I can talk about it on radio?” We think that through our work,

our seminars, and our programs we can empower not only in-school

children but also out of school children to know that the media belongs to

all of them. It is not the preserve of politicians. They can use it to build

their self-esteem, to express their opinion, and to do what adults do with

the media (Akrofi-Quarcoo, personal interview).

The Ghana National Commission on Children also collaborated with

Children and Youth in Broadcasting on this program. Another nongovernmental

organization, the African Youth Alliance provided technical support for content

creation. The African Youth Alliance provided children with information about

reproductive health. This program was thus a focal point around which various

organizations advocated for and realized their advocacy objectives. The impact of

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the program Curious Minds is a testimony of how the strategic planning and

activities of nongovernmental organizations can have an impact on the diversity

of children’s media. Below are the comments of the director of Children and

Youth in Broadcasting about the positive contribution the program made to

support children’s rights and media participation:

[Before Curious Minds] we could not just go to GBC [Ghana Broadcasting

Corporation] and get children manning consoles and having their own

program – taking complete charge of a studio. It won’t happen. But

gradually, we’ve been through some fights – not physical fights but we’ve

always had to argue with people that, “give them the chance after all, in the

house when you show the child how to use the television or the radio they

don’t damage them.” Anything that goes wrong in the studio they want to

blame it on the children even if they’ve not been around. So we’ve been

through a lot of these things. Gradually they’ve realized that it is not as

they think. The children don’t go contrary to the principles we show them.

When you are on the console this is what to do. Push this button it controls

this, do this it will help this, don’t speak when you know the microphone is

on because it can pick noise or send out things you don’t want heard on

air. So they know all these studio ethics. After getting to know this they

also pass the message on gradually. So now I can say that sometimes

during programs, I used to man the consoles but now I don’t man the

consoles. They take total control of the studio. They totally know how to

handle their programs and even how to plan in my absence. So that alone

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 has shaped radio especially for this broadcasting house [GBC]. . . . It has

helped shape the minds of technicians and other people here. When you

talk to the director general [of GBC] she would tell you that she likes the

sort of confidence they exude when talking to them. Because the first time

we invited her to a program we were discussing technology and later we

discussed the girl-child issue. The program went on right to the time it

ended and she asked who really invited her because she had seen only the

young ones asking the questions and manning the console. She said she

was pleased that the children did not feel any awe or fear at talking to the

director general of GBC. So since then, any time they invite her to a

program, she would attend and they can march to her office and ask her

whatever questions they have. And she cites it as an example for others to

follow that “look at what they are able to do – the confidence is there.” So

we have done a lot to shape things here – we have broken a myth in GBC

(Obeng-Kyereh, personal interview).

Nonprofit organizations focusing on children and media issues have impacted the

diversity of children’s television both directly and indirectly by contributing to

content creation and through advocacy and technical support for organizations

working to ensure children’s participation in the media production process.

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 CHAPTER 8: DISCUSSION

The objective of this dissertation was to assess the diversity of children’s

television programs in Ghana and examine the influence of market structure as

well as the conduct of relevant industry players and stakeholders on children’s

television programming in Ghana. This discussion section begins by interpreting

the results on the quantity and diversity of children’s television programs in

Ghana obtained from the content analysis of published program schedules of the

broadcasting stations.

The second part of this chapter follows the analytical model developed in

chapter two to evaluate the impact of market structure and conduct of the

relevant populations within the children’s community in Ghana on the diversity

of children’s television programming in Ghana. This section of the discussion is

based on the results of the interviews and content analysis. In discussing the

results of this dissertation, the adopted theoretical model is reviewed to evaluate

its utility in understanding the factors that influence children’s television

program diversity. Recommendations are related to future studies of children’s

media diversity and the use of the adopted theoretical model.

Children’s Program Diversity

The amount of time made available for children’s television programs by

the broadcast stations in Ghana was quite comparable to what television stations

provide for children in the United Kingdom and the United States. GTV the

public broadcaster scheduled an average of nine hours per week of children’s

programs for the first three years reviewed but the scheduled hours of children’s
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programs dropped in the fourth year to a third (approximately three hours per

week) of the average number of hours per week of scheduled children’s programs

for the first three years reviewed. Metro TV was the station with the highest

number of hours of children’s programming for the four year period studied. The

number of hours per week of children’s programs broadcast by Metro TV did not

change much over the years averaging about 13.5 hours per week for each year

from 2001 through 2004. The average hours per week of children’s programming

broadcast by TV3 varied by year; however, the highest was 18 hours per week of

children’s programs in 2003 and the lowest average number of hours per week

was three hours in 2004 (the year GTV also showed a marked decrease in

scheduled children’s programs). The average number of hours per week of

children’s programs broadcast by each of the television stations in Ghana was

more than the three hours per week of educational and informational programs

broadcast networks in the United States were required to program by the 1996

amendment to the Children’s Television Act.

One must acknowledge however, that the results of the number of hours

for children’s programs in this study includes entertainment-oriented programs

for older teenagers such as sitcoms and drama which may not qualify as

educational or informational children’s program. However, analysis of the

number of hours per week of scheduled educational programs (which fit the

definition of educational and informational children’s programs as stipulated by

the Children’s Television Act) by each station shows that for at least two of the

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four years studied the number of hours per week of educational children’s

programs was three hours or more for each station.

The prospects of children’s programming in Ghana seems promising if one

considers the number of hours of scheduled children’s television programs in an

environment where there are no regulations requiring minimum quotas for

scheduled children’s programs. None of the stations analyzed are or have

dedicated children’s channels and/or programming slots such as those on CBBC

or the Disney channel. Thus the proportion of time assigned to children’s

programs by each station seems commendable. This was between 6% and 13% for

each of the years studied except for 2004 where the proportion of children’s

programming hours dropped to two percent of total broadcast hours for two of

the stations. Total children’s programming hours accounting for the yearly output

of the three stations examined ranged from a high of 2142 hours in 2003 to a low

of 946 hours in 2004. The total children’s television programming for the other

two years reviewed was about 1500 hours per year.

The diversity of children’s programs was analyzed in terms of production

source, format, educational or entertainment oriented content, and target age of

programs. Furthermore, the analysis of children’s television program diversity

examined the amount of diversity across channels at a given time and the degree

of diversity in the schedule of a specific channel. The impact of market structure

and conduct of the relevant industry players on children’s television program

diversity was also examined.

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 Children viewers in Ghana were more likely to see an imported children’s

program on television than a local production. This was because about 70% of

unique titles of children’s programs were imported and about 70% of

programming hours consisted of imported children’s programs for three of the

four years reviewed. This situation is comparable to global trends where

countries around the world used considerable proportions of their total and

prime-time broadcast schedules for imported programs (Iwabuchi, 2002;

Straubhaar, 1997, 2007). The pressure of market conditions such as the cost of

production clearly had an influence on the decisions of station managers who

may opt for imported programs that were cheaper than local productions. The

difference in cost arises when imported children’s programs are older programs

in syndication that have recovered the costs of production through previous

syndication in other markets (Allen, 2001). Furthermore, global content creators

and syndicators in search of new markets offer packages that make syndicated

programs more attractive than local productions.

The importance of having a variety of local and foreign children’s

programs available to children, together with the need to safeguard local

production, is underscored in Ghanaian media policies related to broadcasting.

Like many other countries such as Australia, the UK and other European

countries there are media policies in place that set minimum quotas of locally

produced content television broadcasters are required to schedule. Private

broadcasters in Ghana are required to program at least 30% of total airtime on

television with local programs while public broadcasters are required to use at

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least 60% of total airtime for local productions. However, the total output of local

children’s programs barely met the minimum requirement for most of the years

studied. Thus media policy and regulation were not effective in curtailing the

impact of market conditions and industry conduct such as the influx of imported

children’s programs on the diversity of production sources of children’s television

programs.

One factor that explained the amount of locally produced children’s

programs a station broadcasts was whether the station produced children’s

programs. GTV produced the highest number of local children’s programs among

the three stations while TV3 produced the lowest. It is quite common for

commercial stations to have limited or no in-house children’s productions

(Nikken, 2003).The locally produced children’s programs broadcast by TV3 were

sponsored programs produced by an independent local content creator. Thus

when faced with a choice of how to spend its limited budget on children’s

programming, TV3 opted for the cheaper imported children’s programs. There is

the need to find ways to encourage the local production of children’s programs in

Ghana.

Animation

Due to the high proportion of imported children’s programs broadcast by

the three stations, about 40% of programs available to children were animated

programs for three of the four years reviewed. The proportion of animation and

non-animation programs available on all the stations was almost the same for

most of the years studied except in 2004 where more than 60% of unique titles
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were animated programs. Animated programs did not dominate the overall

schedules of the three stations because of the proportion of time allocated to

educational programs such as School TV and Distance Education. However, most

of the entertainment oriented children’s programs were animated. There are a

large number of children’s animation programs available on the international

market because of the broad appeal of these programs. These programs are able

to cross cultural and national boundaries because of the fantasy component, the

indeterminate ethnic or national origin of the characters in these programs, fewer

national or cultural cues, and the relative ease of dubbing these programs where

necessary (London, 2007).

Although there was some diversity in the target age group of the scheduled

programs of all the television stations, a large majority of programs were targeted

at the 6-11 years age group. Additionally, programming for teenagers was

consistently entertainment rather than educational oriented. However, a large

amount of time was spent on curriculum-based educational programs for junior

and high school children. This age group received the second highest number of

hours of programming by the three stations. Children younger than five years had

the least amount of programs targeted at them based on the analysis of the total

programming output of the three stations. This is interesting when one considers

the upsurge of programming targeting this age-group in the UK and the US with

programs such as Teletubbies, Tweenies, Barney, and Rugrats. One media

professional interviewed commented that it was generally difficult to get toddlers

to watch television and this belief contributed to the limited programming for

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this age group. In Ghana, the television is yet to be used as the “baby sitter” and

this may be due to the limited amount of programming for toddlers although

other factors could be equally responsible.

Market Structure

It is clear from the results of this dissertation that market structure and

conditions influenced the diversity of children’s television in Ghana. The

availability of channels, barriers to market entry, costs and product

differentiation or market segmentation all contributed to the diversity of

children’s television programs in Ghana. The argument that more channels

improved the diversity of children’s programs could be examined by looking at

the output of GTV in comparison with the output of TV3 and Metro TV. This is

because up until 1997 GTV was the sole provider of free-to-air television

programs for children in Ghana. The introduction of Metro TV and TV3 added

more hours of children’s programs broadcast each week. Furthermore, the

private stations increased the diversity of formats of children’s programs

available as TV3 for instance scheduled more animation programs and Metro TV

added more sitcoms to its schedule than GTV.

The high level or increase in children’s television programming output in

most countries is due to the introduction of children’s channels through cable or

satellite program delivery systems. In the United States, children’s programming

increased when in addition to broadcast network programming dedicated

children’s cable channels such as Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and

Nickelodeon began scheduling and providing children’s programs. Similarly,

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yearly output of children’s programming increased in the UK and other parts of

Europe with the introduction of local and dedicated children’s channels such as

CBBC in the UK and multinational children’s channels such as Fox Kids,

Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network. These examples illustrate the direct and

positive impact of market structure, in terms of the number of content

programmers available in a market on the horizontal diversity of children’s

television programs.

In addition to the free-to-air broadcasting stations in Ghana there were

subscription based cable and MMDS/satellite program delivery systems that

provided subscribers with some of the multinational children’s channels such as

Disney and the Cartoon Network. However the penetration of cable television

service providers such as Multichoice Ghana Limited was very minimal –

generally limited to high-income neighborhoods in urban cities. Consequently,

these channels were largely unavailable to the majority of children in Ghana. It is

possible that in the near future, programs distributed through cable and MMDS

delivery systems will be more available as companies such as Multichoice Ghana

Limited and Gateway Communications expand their services in Ghana. The drive

to gain more subscribers could lead to a drop in subscription fees creating an

opportunity for more accessibility and interest from audiences. The widespread

diffusion of multinational dedicated children’s channels will have a significant

impact on the diversity of children’s programs in Ghana.

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Market Influence on Conduct

Product differentiation as a market condition had an influence on the

conduct of content programmers in Ghana. The distinction between public and

private broadcasters determined programming strategies and audience

segmentation. This influenced the diversity of programs offered by each station.

GTV and Metro TV shared some similarities in programming strategies although

Metro TV was not a public broadcaster. TV3’s programming strategies differed

from the other two stations by being more commercially oriented. The

management at Metro TV expressed the station’s commitment to its social

responsibility as a broadcaster and this was reflected in programming decisions

related to serving the public interest that were similar to those made by GTV the

public broadcaster. Metro TV was also established as a joint venture between the

Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and Media Number One, a Ghanaian media

company and this history may be responsible for Metro TV’s choices to serve

children’s interest. One other reason for the distinction in programming

strategies between GTV and Metro TV on the one hand and TV3 was that TV3

was owned by foreign media investors from Malaysia (Media Prima Berhad)

while GTV and Metro TV were locally owned. Media Prima Berhad owned other

television stations in Malaysia and the expected performance of TV3 in

comparison with the other media assets owned by Media Prima Berhard had

some influence on the programming choices and operational decisions of TV3.

When each of the three stations was considered separately, one could

argue that the image and mission of the station as a public broadcaster or a

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private commercial station influenced the proportion of time assigned to locally

produced children’s television programs. GTV consistently assigned a higher

proportion of time on its schedule to locally produced children’s programs than

Metro TV or TV3. GTV, as a public broadcasting station, had more educational

programs and showed more local content than the private, commercial station

TV3. Despite the threat of media commercialization and privatization, public

broadcasters around the world strive to achieve the public service mandate of

providing educational and local productions that reflect cultural identity and

target marginal groups such as children. TV3 and Metro TV targeted the 6-11 age-

group with Metro TV providing additional programming for the 12+ age group.

TV3 scheduled commercially successful and popular imported preschool

children’s programs such as Teletubbies and Tweenies to provide programs for

children five years and younger. Without such commercially successful programs

it is doubtful whether TV3 would have scheduled programs targeting this age

group.

In the absence of dedicated children’s television channels in Ghana,

children still had access to children’s programs each day of the week on the three

stations. By setting aside particular time slots for children’s programs, children

had the opportunity to make time for when their favorite shows were on

television. As is the practice of stations in many countries including the broadcast

networks in the US, stations in Ghana did not schedule the majority of their

programs over the weekend but spread them through the week. One could argue

that this scheduling strategy affirmed the strong commitment of Ghanaian

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television stations to children’s programming. The day with the lowest proportion

of time scheduled for children’s programs for each of the years in the study

period was Sunday. With a low proportion of 3% of total time scheduled with

children’s programs in 2001 to a high of 10% 0f total time with scheduled

children’s programs in 2004. However, the lack of specific children’s programs

on Sunday is compensated for with the scheduling of religious and family-

oriented programming by all three television stations.

Conduct of Content Creators

The impact of the conduct of content creators on children’s television

diversity is indirectly affected by market structure. In other words, conditions of

market structure such as number of content creators and advertisers, costs, and

product differentiation influences the conduct of content creators in terms of

product strategy. Content creators of children’s programs are either part of a TV

station or independent production studios.

Programs produced by independent content creators were financed by

sponsors (usually a single advertiser per program) who paid for the cost of

production as well as the cost of airtime to broadcast the program. The cost of

producing children’s programs is high especially when programs are tailored to

specific audiences and produced on behalf of specific advertising sponsors.

Though episodes for such programs could be repeated, the cost of airtime for

repeated programs is the same as for first-run programs. This was the reason why

sponsors preferred to pay for new programs instead of repeats. In effect, a

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program was produced to be broadcast once eliminating the potential revenue

from repeats or broadcasts in other local or international markets.

Sponsors had a large influence on the content and continued production

or broadcast of a television program because they usually paid for the cost of

production and broadcast. The production of a children’s program series by an

independent content creator could come to an end when a sponsor decided to

stop financing the program. This is because the production budget of the

program was usually paid for solely by the sponsor. Without alternate means of

financing, production of the program was discontinued. The diversity of locally

produced children’s programs in Ghana in terms of format and target age group

largely depended on what sponsors were willing to finance and additional

financing available to in-house production studios such as GTV and Metro TV.

Ghana’s media industry has evolved from a regulated government

monopoly to a mixed market with public and private owned firms. This

dissertation shows a positive influence of market structure and conduct of firms

on the diversity of children’s television programs after the deregulation and

privatization of the media industry. Economic factors were a larger obstacle than

regulatory factors to the increased diversity of children’s television programs in

Ghana. Furthermore, the role of the nonprofit sector in correcting these

economic factors relevant to children’s television has been minimal. The

nonprofit sector barely provided financial support for children’s content creation

and programming in Ghana. This does not, however, take away the other

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important contributions of the nonprofit sector to the children’s media industry

in Ghana.

Non-Profit and Public Sector Influence

Non-market influences had a direct and indirect impact on the diversity of

children’s programs in Ghana. Nonprofit organizations, governmental agencies,

and advocacy groups contributed to the diversity of children’s programs in

Ghana. Regulatory and advocacy institutions have played the role of engaging the

media industry to provide child appropriate content as well as content relevant to

children’s health, rights and development. Nonprofit organizations such as the

African Youth Alliance for example, provided technical support in the

development of content dealing with adolescent reproductive health. This was

manifested through content specially developed by television stations to address

such issues with different communities.

Another important contribution of nonprofit organizations in Ghana was

the advocacy to increase children’s access to the media as well as their

participation in the media. Strategic activities and advocacy by nonprofit and

nongovernmental organizations have therefore contributed to the positioning of

children’s issues and interests in the media away from the periphery to a more

central focus by demanding the attention of media organizations and

professionals. It must be acknowledged that more work needs to be done in this

direction for the improved benefit of children.

The data from the interviews for this dissertation supports the notion that

when governments and markets are responsive to the public interest and provide
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for marginalized groups the non-profit sector does not need to step in to provide

the same goods and services. Consequently, the non-profit sector did not play the

role of content creator or programmer in Ghana because both public and private

owned stations provided an adequate supply of children’s television programs.

However, the non-profit sector was still able to identify a need and direct

resources to meeting those needs. In Ghana, children’s access and participation

in the media was the aspect of the children’s television industry that needed

attention.

Evaluation of Analytical Framework

Non-governmental organizations have been playing an active role in

different sectors of the economy of many developing countries in recent years

(Makoba, 2002; Toepler & Salamon, 2003). As such it was useful to examine the

relevance of non-governmental organizations in the media sector of developing

countries. Although the media industry operates profitably in a mixed market

economy in many western countries, there are sectors of the media industry that

may not be that successful or profitable. There is always the possibility especially

in developing countries of government and/or market failure with regards to the

media industry. Government and market failure theory provided the framework

for an initial assessment of media industries in developing countries.

Bryant’s (2007) Children’s Television Community model was useful for

identifying the populations that influence children’s television. The underlying

concept of the model which identified populations that were involved with

creating, producing, distributing, supporting and defending children’s television

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can be used to examine children’s television in specific countries. The model can

serve as a framework for comparative analyses of children’s television in different

geographic locations and markets. One must recognize that the number and

identity of the populations in the children’s television community are not fixed.

In other words, the general populations that constitute the children’s television

community can differ under different national media systems and market

conditions. The specific populations may not be the same as the ones Bryant

(2007) identified for the US children’s television community. For instance, toy

makers or philanthropic organizations may play little or no role in the children’s

television community in a particular national market.

The concepts of market structure and conduct outlined by the IOM were

important factors to examine in the analysis of media diversity. However,

inaccessible financial and media industry data such as ad revenues, audience

share, and financial turnover by content programmers and content creators can

be a limitation in using the IOM for an economic analysis of the media industry.

Overall, the analytical model used for this dissertation can be used for the

analysis of television program diversity in other national media markets.

Recommendations

The results of this dissertation have highlighted aspects of the media

industry in Ghana in need of change to help facilitate progressive improvements

within the industry. Furthermore, the results of this dissertation serve as the

foundation for future research. Below are recommendations for the media

industry and future research.

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ƒ The media industry in Ghana should make industry information available

through avenues such as regular published directories of industry players,

program schedule guides, ratings data and advertising rates. One of the

challenges of this dissertation was locating relevant media industry

information. Availability of industry information will be useful to media

professionals, investors, and researchers interested in the Ghanaian media

market structure.

ƒ It is recommended that policy makers in Ghana initiate and implement

policies that encourage the production and broadcast of local programs.

The media professional agreed that specific media policies on children’s

programs can encourage the production and broadcast of local children’s

programs. Specific children’s media policies will draw attention to the

importance of providing local children’s programs. Furthermore,

enforcing these policies will directly impact the diversity of children’s

programs in Ghana.

ƒ Media professionals must develop more effective strategies to facilitate

their objective of meeting children’s needs by providing more diverse

television content for children. This can include collaboration with both

government and private sectors to acquire production facilities for the

development of children’s programs; and establish a common fund to

assist in the cost of producing and broadcasting children’s programs.

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ƒ Finally policy makers and media professionals should encourage and

utilize research on the children’s media industry in Ghana as a tool for

reassessing and evaluation the industry as a whole.

ƒ Future research could use the results of this dissertation to examine

children’s perceptions of, and involvement with children’s media and the

value such involvement adds to the quality and diversity of television

content for children.

ƒ Furthermore, future studies can use a sample of recorded television

programs broadcast by the stations to provide a more detailed analysis of

children’s television diversity.

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 CONCLUSION

This dissertation examined the diversity of children’s television programs

in a developing country experiencing structural changes in its media industry by

way of deregulation and media privatization. The analytical model employed was

useful in examining the factors that influence children’s television diversity. By

identifying the relevant populations involved with children’s programming in

Ghana, this dissertation was able examine how market structure influences the

strategic conduct of relevant industry players and how their conduct impacts

diversity of children’s television.

In examining the market structure of the children’s television industry in

Ghana and its influence on the diversity of children’s television content this

dissertation focused on market factors including the number of content creators

and content programmers, advertising revenue, product differentiation, barriers

to entry, and cost factors. There were three free-to-air television stations with

national or near national (more than 70% of the country) reach making them the

largest television broadcasters in Ghana. These stations were the public owned

broadcaster GTV and the two private owned broadcasters Metro TV and TV3.

Children’s television content creators in Ghana included GTV, Metro TV,

and independent content creators such as Primetime Limited and Nat Lomo

Mainoo. The children’s program production output of the broadcast stations was

higher than that of the independent content creators. The broadcast stations

scheduled children’s programs produced in-house or obtained from independent

children’s television content creators. Broadcast stations either purchased (by

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buying the license to broadcast) children’s programs from syndicators and

independent content creators or sold airtime to independent content creators to

broadcast their children’s programs. These programs from independent content

creators were usually sponsored or paid for by advertisers.

There were very few companies with products used solely by children

(such as toy companies) in Ghana limiting the number of advertisers or sponsors

of children’s television programs. Companies that advertised on children’s

programs, or sponsored the production of children’s programs in Ghana were the

makers of breakfast foods, soft drinks and frozen desserts. These companies

included Nestle Ghana Limited, Cadbury Ghana Limited, Unilever Ghana, and

Fan Milk Limited. Although these companies manufactured products children

used, they did not always see children as their primary target. Consequently,

content creators of children’s programs had to compete with content creators of

programs for older audiences for the same advertising revenue.

Barriers to entry, especially those associated with financial costs, was one

challenge that both content creators and content programmers in Ghana had to

deal with in providing children’s television programs. The cost of producing

children’s programs was high especially when programs were tailored towards

specific audiences and produced on behalf of specific advertising sponsors. The

high cost of, and limited revenue stream from children’s programs produced in

Ghana served as a disincentive for producers and investors.

Product differentiation in the broadcast industry in Ghana was associated

with the image and mission of broadcast stations. Product differentiation had an

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impact on children’s television program diversity in Ghana by influencing the

program strategies of television broadcast stations. GTV as the public broadcaster

with a mission to serving the public interest produced and broadcast more locally

produced children’s programs than TV3 a private station owned by international

investors. TV3’s goal was to attract large audiences through entertainment

programming and as such broadcast some of the commercially successful foreign

content for children. Metro TV distinguished itself as the locally originated

commercial station. As a result they specialized in broadcasting both local and

foreign content for children.

In identifying the impact of the conduct of children’s television

programmers and content creators on the diversity of children’s television in

Ghana, the results of the dissertation show that audience segmentation and

program scheduling formed the core of conduct in the children’s television

industry in Ghana. All three stations provided some programming for children of

different ages however each station provided a greater proportion of

programming hours to specific age groups during the four year period studied.

GTV targeted children 6-11 years old as well as children 12 years and older. TV3

and Metro TV targeted the 6-11 age-group. TV 3 also provided content for the 1-5

age group whereas Metro TV on the other hand provided additional content for

children 12 years and older. This kind of audience segmentation resulted in

horizontal diversity in the children’s television industry in Ghana.

Another area in which market structure influenced the diversity of

children’s television programs in Ghana involved program scheduling by the

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three stations. The types and formats of programs selected and broadcast by each

station was analyzed as evidence of product differentiation. GTV devoted a larger

proportion of its programming hours to locally produced children’s programs

whereas TV3 devoted a larger proportion of its programming hours to foreign

children’s programs. Furthermore, GTV scheduled more educational oriented

programs whereas TV3 scheduled more entertainment oriented programs.

The degree of vertical diversity had an impact on the horizontal diversity

of children’s television programs in Ghana. The three stations studied together

provided about 30 hours per week of children’s programs. A majority of unique

titles of children’s programs scheduled for broadcast were imported. Despite the

high proportion of imported children’s programs and the popularity of animated

children’s programs on the international market the proportion of animation and

non-animation programs available on all the stations was almost the same.

However, most of the entertainment oriented children’s programs were

animated. There were also more entertainment oriented children’s programs

broadcast by the three stations than educational oriented programs.

In exploring the influence of the activities and strategies of the relevant

stakeholders on the diversity of children’s television programs in Ghana the

position of this dissertation included the perspective of children as a

marginalized group and children’s television as a public good. Based on this

perspective government and market failure theory was used as a theoretical

framework for this dissertation. The results of this dissertation indicate clearly

that there was neither government nor market failure with regards to children’s

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television in Ghana. Consequently, there was no need for non-profit

organizations to step in as content programmers of children’s television

programs. Although non-profit organizations in Ghana were not directly

responsible for children’s television programming, they provided technical

support for the creation of children’s programs as well advocacy for children’s

participation in and access to the media.

Based on the assumption of the high commitment to children’s programs

and local production by public service broadcasters, it was interesting that GTV

consistently provided less children’s programming compared to the two private-

owned stations. Metro TV provided the most programming hours of children’s

content and that was unexpected. Whereas GTV broadcast the most unique titles

of locally produced programs, Metro TV allocated the most hours to local

programs. The results of this dissertation show that the decision to open up the

media industry to private companies has served the interest of children well.

It was interesting to observe the decline in the quantity of children’s

television programs as the years progressed. By 2004 for example GTV had a

66% decline in its children’s programming compared to what it provided the

previous year. This appears to be in line with what was happening to children’s

television programs in Europe, the UK, and on the broadcast networks in the

United States. The amount of children’s programs and programming hours

broadcast by the free-to-air stations in Ghana was comparable to other countries.

This dissertation assessed the state and prospects of the children’s

television industry by providing a systematic overview of children’s television

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programming in Ghana. The results of this dissertation make it possible to

compare the degree of the diversity of children’s television programming in

Ghana with those of other countries. Such comparisons can help policy makers

and media professionals in Ghana make decisions to improve the state of

children’s media in Ghana. For instance, policy makers can initiate policies that

would encourage the local production of children’s programs and media

professionals can use the results of this dissertation as a foundation for

developing effective strategies to meet their objective to provide children’s media

content.

This dissertation builds upon theories about media diversity in general

and children’s television in particular. The results can help researchers

understand the similarities and differences in the factors that impact children’s

media diversity in a developing country in comparison to the media in developed

countries. Different factors impacting media diversity have been examined by

other studies and the results of this dissertation add to the understanding of

media diversity by showing how market structure and conduct are relevant

influences on media diversity. Furthermore, studies of media diversity usually

classify children’s media as one of many broad categories for analysis however

this detailed examination of formats and genres, production source, educational

and entertainment orientation, and target age of children’s television programs

enriches the study of media diversity.

Conducting the research for this dissertation was not free of challenges.

The children’s television industry in Ghana is smaller and younger compared to

203
those in the United States and United Kingdom. As a result, some of the

challenges of this dissertation were locating relevant stakeholders to interview

and gaining access to industry data.

One limitation of this dissertation is that it did not directly obtain the

opinions and perceptions of children about the diversity of children’s television

programs in Ghana. However, children were not included in this dissertation

because the emphasis was specifically on the media industry and the relevant

stakeholders involved in the creation, distribution, defense, and support of

children’s television. Future research could use the results of this dissertation to

examine children’s perceptions of and involvement with children’s media and the

value such involvement adds to the quality and diversity of television content for

children.

Another limitation of this study is that archived broadcast schedules were

analyzed instead of viewing the actual programs broadcast by the television

stations selected for the dissertation. As such errors in the discrepancies between

the schedule and what was actually broadcast could not be detected. The analysis

could not also account for the number of episode repeats in the schedule.

Although one could assume that the discrepancies between published program

schedules and what gets broadcast is minimal due to the consistency in television

scheduling, future studies can use a sample of recorded television programs

broadcast by the stations to provide a more detailed analysis for children’s

television diversity.

204
 Children will continue to spend significant amounts of time watching

television and interacting with new media and information technologies

therefore, knowledge of how to meet the television needs of children will be a

valuable tool for stakeholders.

205
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 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Questions for non-governmental organizations

1. What are the goals and mission of your organization in relation to

children’s television?

2. How did your organization come to focus on children’s television?

3. What do you see as the role of your organization in relation to government

policy for and about children’s television?

a. How do you represent children’s issues on television?

b. Why does your organization see television as important to

children’s development?

4. What do you see as the role of your organization with decisions concerning
the children’s television industry in Ghana?

5. What are some specific projects involving children’s television

programming your organization has undertaken?

a. Has your organization undertaken any projects involving advocacy,

policy and technical support for program content, development and
financial support relating to children’s television?

6. How does your organization determine the needs of children in relation to

television?

7. What are the challenges your organization faces with children’s television
programming?

8. What are your future plans and projects for the children’s television in
Ghana?
 

223
 Questions for media professionals

1. How long has your station/organization provided children’s television

programming?

2. What does your station’s see as the primary children audience in Ghana?

3. How did your station decide to target that specific age group?

4. Does your station have formal policies for children’s television

programming? Can I get a copy of this document?

5. How does your station decide what show to program for children?

6. Who determines the children’s programming schedule at your station?

7. Who determines what to program on television for children?

8. How has this changed over time?

9. Does the station receive assistance from non-governmental organizations

for children’s programs?

10. Have non-governmental organizations sponsored specific children’s

programs for your station?

11. Have non-governmental organizations purchased airtime for children’s

programs?

12. Do current government policies help or hinder your program

schedule/content?

13. What are the challenges you as a station manager face with programming
for children?

224
 Questions for government agencies and officials

1. What are the goals and mission of your agency in relation to children’s
television?

2. How did your agency come to focus on children’s television?

3. What do you see as the role of your agency in relation to policy for and
about children’s television?

a. How does your agency represent children’s voices television?

b. How does your agency protect children’s voices television?

 
c. Why does your agency see television as important to children’s
development?

4. What do you see as the role of your agency with decisions concerning the
children’s television industry in Ghana?

5. What are some specific projects involving children’s television

programming your agency has undertaken?

6. Has your agency undertaken any projects involving advocacy, policy and
technical support for program content, development and financial support
relating to children’s television?

7. How does your agency determine the needs of children in relation to

television?

8. What are the challenges your agency faces with children’s television
programming?

9. What are your future plans and projects for the children’s television in
Ghana?

225
 APPENDIX B: LIST OF PARTICIPANTS FOR INTERVIEWS

Kweku Mensa-Bonsu Primetime Limited

Dinah Naa-Dei Amoo Ghana Broadcasting Corporation

Alhassan Haruna Metropolitan Entertainment Television

Nat Lomo Mainoo Children’s Content Creator

Frank Norteye TV 3 Network Limited

Wilson Arthur Sky Television

Doris Kuwornu Ghana Broadcasting Corporation

Sarah Akrofi-Quarcoo Women in Broadcasting

Kingsley Obeng-Kyereh Children and Youth in Broadcasting

Susan Sabaa Ghana NGO Coalition on the Rights of the Child

Dr. Robert K. Mensah African Youth Alliance

Ruth Addison Ghana National Commission on Children

226
 APPENDIX C : CODING SHEET

1. ID ____ ____ ____ _____

2. Program Title_________________________________________

3. Broadcast Media 1 =Radio 2 = Television

4. TV Station 1= GTV 2 = Metro TV 3 = TV 3

5. Radio Station 1= GAR 2= Joy FM 3= Peace FM 4=Radio Universe

5 = Sunny FM 6=Other

6. Year 1=2001 2=2002 3=2003 4=2004

7. Month 1=Jan 2=Feb 3=March 4=April 5=May 6=June 7=July

8=Aug 9=Sept 10=Oct 11=Nov 12 = Dec

8. Day of the Week 1 =Mon 2 = Tues 3= Wed 4=Thurs 5=Fri

6=Sat 7=Sun

9. Time 1= 6am-8:59am 2=9am– 11:59am 3=12noon – 2:59pm 4=

3pm-5:59pm 5=6pm-8:59pm 6=after 9pm

10. Program Duration in Minutes ___ ___ ____:____ _____

11. Category of Show 1=Education only 2=Entertainment only

3=Education & Entertainment 4=Unknown

12. Type of Show 1= Animation 2=Non animation 3=Puppets 4= Mixed

5=Other 6=Unknown

13. Format of Show 1=Adventure 2=Mixed Cartoons 3=Comedy

4= Children’s news 5= Discussion/Debates 6=Documentary 7=Drama

8=Fantasy/science 9=Foreign language 10=Game Shows 11=Hosted

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 12=Movies 13=Quiz 14=Religious 15 =Variety/Magazine show

16= Instructor/teacher led 17= Other 18= Unknown

14. Production Source 1=Local 2= Imported 3=Unknown

15. Origin of Show 1= Australia 2=British 2= German 4= Ghana 5= South

Africa 6=U.S 7=Canadian 8=Unknown 9=Other

16. Target Audience 1= 2-5 years 2 = 6 -11 years 3 = 12+ 4=Unknown

17. Production Company

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 APPENDIX D: CODE BOOK

Program Title refers to the title of the program as listed in the program

schedule of television stations published in the Radio and Television guide.

TV Station refers to the television station airing the particular television

program and identified by the official name of the television station.

Year refers to the year in which a particular program aired on television.

Month refers to the particular month in which the television or radio program

was broadcast.

Day of the Week refers to the specific day the program aired on television.

Time refers to the time of the day the program aired on a television station.

Program duration refers to the length of time a particular program aired on

television.

Educational Programs are programs usually based on formal educational

curricular and aim to meet the cognitive, intellectual and social needs of children.

Entertainment Programs are not explicitly educational and usually include

various elements of informal education.

Category of Show refers to the category within which the program falls and

ranges between educational and entertainment to a mixture of both educational

and entertainment.

Type of Show refers to the type of children’s television show being aired.

Format of Show refers to format choice for the particular program being aired.

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Generic Cartoons refers animated children’s programs listed as cartoons in the

schedule but not identified by title in the schedules of the stations identified for

the dissertation.

Production Source determines whether the program being aired was created

and originates locally or identified as a foreign or imported program.

Origin of Show refers to the country of origin of the particular television

program.

Target Audience refers to the age range of the audiences targeted by producers

and content creators of the programs airing on the different television stations.

Production Company refers to the company with ownership of the particular

program airing on television.

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 APPENDIX E: LIST OF TELEVISION SHOWS

TV SHOW COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

1 Adventures of Sam Australia

2 Adventures of Sinbad Canada

3 Adventures of Swiss Family Robinson Canada

4 Aladdin United States

5 Batman United States

6 Beauty and the Beast United States

7 Brilliant Science and Math Ghana

8 The Brothers Flub United States

9 The Bubblies United Kingdom

10 Bugs Bunny United States

11 By the Fire Side Ghana

12 Cadillacs & Dinosaurs United States

13 Care Bears United States

14 Cedric the Crow Australian

15 Children's Own Ghana

16 Children's World Unknown

17 Dennis and Gnasher United Kingdom

18 Distance Education Ghana

19 Donkey Kong United States

20 Enid Blyton United Kingdom

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21 Experiments are Fun Unknown

22 Ferdy Cartoon Unknown

23 Flintstones United States

24 Flipper United States

25 Fun House Ghana

26 Fun World Ghana

27 Generic Cartoons Various countries

28 Gladiators 2000 United States

29 Godzilla United States and Japan

30 Hercules United States

31 Hobby Time Ghana

32 Incredible Dennis United States

33 Journey of Allen Strange United States

34 Jumanji United States

35 Kaput and Zosky Canada

36 Kejetia Ghana

37 Kenan and Kel United States

38 Kiddie Quiz Ghana

39 Kids Castle Unknown

40 Kids Say the Darnest Things United States

41 K-Time Ghana

42 Kwasasa Show Time Ghana

43 Kyekyekule Kidz Ghana

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44 Legends of the Hidden United States

45 Magic School Bus United States

46 Max Steel United States

47 Men in Black Australia

48 Metro Kids Ghana

49 Moesha United States

50 My Brother and Me United States

51 Nancy Drew France and Canada

52 Ned News Unknown

53 Nick Freno United States

54 Ocean Girl Australia

55 Power Rangers United States

56 Pumuckl German

57 Ready or Not Canada

58 Return to Jupiter Australia

59 Rip Van Winkle United States

60 Rug Rats United States

61 Rupert the Bear United Kingdom

62 Sam and Max United States

63 Saved by the Bell United States

64 School TV - Metro TV version Ghana

65 School TV - South African Version South Africa

66 Science Workshop Ghana

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67 Scooby Doo United States

68 Sesame Street United States

69 Silver Hawks United States

70 Smart Kids Ghana

71 Smash TV Ghana

72 Stickin Around Canada

73 Story Time United States

74 Super Book Japan and United States

75 Superman United States

76 Swat Kats United States

77 Teen Wolf United Kingdom

78 Teletubbies United Kingdom

79 The Star Child Unknown

80 Thunder Stone Australia

81 Timon and Pumba United States

82 Toddlers Time Ghana

83 Transformers United States

84 Tweenies United Kingdom

85 Velveteen Rabbit Canada

86 We're Back Dad Unknown

87 X-Attitude South Africa

88 Youth Quake Ghana

89 Zorro United States and France

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235
 APPENDIX F: OHIO UNIVERSITY CONSENT FORM

Federal and university regulations require signed consent for participation in

research involving human subjects. After reading the statements below, please
indicate your consent by signing this form. The purpose of this study is to
determine the state of children’s radio and television programming in Ghana as
well as the contributions interested stakeholders are making to provide quality
children’s programming on radio and television.

You will be asked to participate in an interview lasting up to two hours at a

location of your choosing. Any information you provide will be confidential and I
will be the only person with access to the data generated from my interview with
you. I will be tape recording my interview with you. The tapes with the
recordings of my interview with you will only be accessible to me and be in my
possession at all times. The tapes will be destroyed after my dissertation is
complete by June 2007 approximately.

Please note that there are no known risks to your participating in the interview
for this study. The potential benefit of this study will be the availability of
information concerning the industry in which you are a stakeholder. The
information could be used to make improvements in children’s radio and
television in Ghana. The names of participants will be referred to in the
dissertation with their permission. Please indicate below your preference
concerning identification in my dissertation

Would you like your name to be identified in the dissertation?

Yes_______No________

If you have any questions regarding this study, please contact

Enyonam Osei-Hwere (Primary Investigator) Norma Pecora, PhD (Advisor)

Email: osei-hwe@ohio.edu pecora@ohio.edu

Phone: 021 403438 001 740 593 4864

If you have any questions regarding your rights as a research participant, please
contact Jo Ellen Sherow, Director of Research Compliance, Ohio University, 001
740 593 0664

I certify that I have read and understand this consent form and agree to
participate as a subject in the research described. I agree that known risks to me
236
have been explained to my satisfaction and I understand that no compensation is
available from Ohio University and its employees for any injury resulting from
my participation in this research. I certify that I am 18 years of age or older. My
participation in this research is given voluntarily. I understand that I may
discontinue participation at anytime without penalty or loss of any benefits to
which I may otherwise be entitled. I certify that I have been given a copy of this
consent form to take with me.

Signature______________________ Date__________________

Printed Name_______________________

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 APPENDIX G: CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

Excerpts

Article 12

1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her
own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting
the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with
the age and maturity of the child.

2. For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity
to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the
child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body,
in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law.

Article 13

1. The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall
include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all
kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the
form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice.

2. The exercise of this right may be subject to certain restrictions, but these
shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; or

(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre
public), or of public health or morals.
Article 17

States Parties recognize the important function performed by the mass media
and shall ensure that the child has access to information and material from a
diversity of national and international sources, especially those aimed at the
promotion of his or her social, spiritual and moral well-being and physical and
mental health. To this end, States Parties shall:

(a) Encourage the mass media to disseminate information and material

of social and cultural benefit to the child and in accordance with the
spirit of article 29;
(b) Encourage international co-operation in the production, exchange
and dissemination of such information and material from a
diversity of cultural, national and international sources;
(c) Encourage the production and dissemination of children's books;

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 (d) Encourage the mass media to have particular regard to the
linguistic needs of the child who belongs to a minority group or who
is indigenous;
(e) Encourage the development of appropriate guidelines for the
protection of the child from information and material injurious to
his or her well-being, bearing in mind the provisions of articles 13
and 18.

Article 31

1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in
play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to
participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

2. States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate
fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of
appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and
leisure activity.

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 APPENDIX H: AFRICAN CHARTER ON CHILDREN’S

BROADCASTING

Preamble

We, the delegates of the Africa Summit on Children and Broadcasting, Accra
Ghana 8 -12 October 1997, affirm and accept the intentionally adopted Children’s
Television Charter that was accepted in Munich on 29 May 1995. In addition, we
amend the SADC Children’s Broadcasting Charter (June 1996) to read as the
Africa Charter on Children’s Broadcasting.

Without detracting from the International Children’s Television Charter, we

further adopt in line with the said Charter and in the spirit of the said Charter,
our Africa Charter on Children’s Broadcasting, which takes into consideration the
needs and wants of children in our region.

1. Children should have progammes of high quality, made specifically for

them and which do not exploit them at any stage of the production
process. These programmes, in addition to entertaining, should allow
children to develop physically, mentally and socially to their fullest
potential.

2. Whilst recognizing that children’s broadcasting will be funded through

various mechanisms including advertising, sponsorship and
merchandising, children should be protected from commercial
exploitation.

3. Whilst endorsing the child’s right to freedom of expression, thought,

conscience and religion, and protection against economic, exploitation,
children must be ensured equitable access to programmes, and whenever
possible, to the production of programmes.

4. Children should hear, see and express themselves, their culture, their
language and their life experiences, through the electronic media that
affirm their sense of self, community and place.

5. Children’s programmes should create opportunities for learning and

empowerment to promote and support the child’s right to education and
development. Children’s programmes should promote an awareness and
appreciation of other cultures in parallel with the child’s own cultural
background. To facilitate this there should be ongoing research into the
child audience, including the child’s needs and wants.

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 6. Children’s programmes should be wide ranging in genre and content, but
should not include gratuitous scenes, and sounds of violence and sex
through any audio or visual medium.

7. Children’s programmes should be aired in regular time slots at times when

children are available to listen and view, and/or be distributed via other
widely accessible media or technologies.

8. Sufficient resources, technical, financial and other, must be made available

to make these programmes to the highest possible standards, and in order
to achieve quality, setting codes and standards for children’s broadcasting
must be formulated and developed through a diverse range of groupings.

9. In compliance with the UN policy of co-operation between states in the

international community, the Africa Children’s Broadcasting Charter
recognizes all international covenants, conventions, treaties, charters and
agreements adopted by all international organizations including the OAU
and the UN affecting children, but with particular reference to the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child.
 

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