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Linsly Donnelly shares an article and advice from the Parents Television Council designed to help you manage and monitor the media your children consume. 

What’s streaming on your kids’… tablet? OTT? SVOD?

Is it AOK??

Exhale, grab a cup of tea and curl up to dive into the answer. Grab this guide – compliments of one of our leading experts- the Parent Television Council – to make sense of the channel complexity these streaming services introduce into your parenting problem set.

Today’s parents battle an increasingly complex media environment for the most critical thing any parent craves – the ability to positively influence how their kids’ see the world.

Regardless of what each family’s values are, all parents want to share a value set that builds the character traits they see as critical to children’s health and life-long happiness.  However, as screen time grabs more hours from kids’ days, the media stories on those screens hi-jacks parents’ share of voice. And, as media becomes more complicated with increasing formats, devices – and providers, parents want – and need –  help navigating that complexity as well as the content coming across screens to their kids.

For more than twenty years, the Parents Television Council has led the charge to help parents understand what’s on their kids’ screens. When Parents TV Council began advocating on kids’ behalf for better content and ratings, cable services were just gaining share and adding complexity to family media management. Twenty + years later parents now deal with networks + cable channels + an ever-increasing count of OTT and SVOD services – on family TVs, tablets, Smartphones – and whatever newly internet-connected come online.

Get the 30+  TV shows the Parent Television Council gives the “Green Light” to for your family.

In the report, the PTC’s Program Director, Melissa Henson,  organizes the streaming services – OTT + SVOD – and clearly reviews how they stack up for family management:

Providers –> OTT: Apple TV, Chromecast, Amazon Fire, Roku, SVOD: Hulu, Amazon, Netflix

Content ratings –> Are they present, easily visible and consistently applied?

Content elements -> Focusing on providers’ original content, what adult themes surface and how prevalent is adult themed content.

Parental controls –> Are they there? Are they easy to circumvent?

Cost -> per month

Ever increasing channels with blurred lines between content creators and distributors means today’s media management can make parents feel like they’re traversing the Wild West. Parents Television Council makes it easier for parents to navigate the wide-open terrain with research like this report as well as ongoing review and ratings of all content hitting families’ TV screens.

Learn more about the Parents Television Council and how to support their daily efforts to keep parents informed and media companies on the hook for thinking about how media content impacts our kids.

 

Key points include:

• Parents Television Council report
• 30 approved TV shows
• SmartFeed resources

Read the full article, Make Sense of What’s Streaming on Your Kids’ Devices!, on TheSmartFeed.com.