TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/042489/04248900.001

Text File | 1990-09-18 | 3.6 KB | 70 lines

PRESS, Page 74

Tapping the Kiddie Market

In spite of video-age competition, children's magazines boom


    Once upon a time there were many magazines for children, and
they featured such artful writers as Rudyard Kipling and Charles
Dickens. But today's children are too distracted by television to
sit down and read. Right?  Wrong. In the past two years alone, the
number of children's publications tracked by the Educational Press
Association of America has nearly doubled, from 85 to 160, bringing
their total circulation to an impressive 40 million. Says Don
Stoll, executive director of the EPAA: "There has been
extraordinary activity in children's periodicals."

    It is not difficult to figure out why. Concern over illiteracy
and the decline of the nation's schools has alarmed the generation
of well-educated baby boomers who are now rearing their own
children. "This is the most ardent interest on the part of parents
that we've seen in a very long time," says Susan P. Bloom, director
of the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons
College in Boston.

    Few, if any, of the current crop of children's magazines
feature the literary firepower of their forebears. But what they
lack in name recognition they make up for in diversity. Nearly
half, including Weekly Reader, Junior Scholastic and Science
Weekly, are designed as teaching aids for the classroom. Outside
school, magazines such as the venerable Boys' Life, Highlights for
Children and the new U.S. Kids offer a combination of fiction and
nonfiction stories, puzzles and contests. Then there is the
fast-growing crop of special-interest magazines, including
Cobblestone (history), Faces (anthropology), Odyssey (space
exploration and astronomy), Cricket (fiction), Merlyn's Pen
(student fiction) and television companions like Alf and Sesame
Street. A subset includes junior versions of adult magazines such
as Penny Power (published by Consumer Reports), National Geographic
World and the newest entry, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED FOR KIDS.

    While many children's publications do not accept advertising,
others see strong commercial opportunity in young readers. SPORTS
ILLUSTRATED publisher Donald Barr calculates that children between
the ages of nine and twelve spend $5 billion annually and influence
their parents' spending of $40 billion more. SI FOR KIDS, which has
sold $7.5 million in advertising since its January debut,
distributes 250,000 copies of each monthly issue free to 1,200
underfunded schools in the U.S. to encourage literacy.

    Still, critics argue that children should not be exposed to
sales pitches, especially in the classroom. "We don't want to bring
up children to believe that what corporations think is right," says
Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children's Television, based
in Cambridge, Mass.

    While all children's publishers refuse liquor and tobacco
advertising, some are more discriminating than others. Children's
Television Workshop, publisher of Sesame Street, 3-2-1 Contact and
KidCity, will not accept ads for candy, medications or violent
games and toys. On the other hand, Alf and Mickey Mouse, which are
published by New York City-based Welsh Publishing, are little more
than promotions surrounded by ads for sugarcoated breakfast cereals
and video games. "We're an entertainment company," explains company
president Donald Welsh.

    Whatever his critics may think, Welsh's publications, like all
other children's magazines, have to pass a dual test to succeed.
They must appeal first to kids and then to parents, grandparents
and schoolteachers, who write the checks for subscriptions.