Advertising policies

All children's television programming is subject to limits on the amount of advertising. Stations can air no more than 12 minutes of ads each hour on weekdays and 10½ minutes an hour on weekends.

In addition, the FCC also has a very strict policy that an advertisement for a product tie-in for the program being aired is not allowed in any form, or else the entire program will be classified automatically as a violating half-hour program length commercial according to the FCC's definition, even if one second of a show's character is seen in an advertisement. The individual station has the responsibility to comply with the standards and regulations and report instances of it happening within their quarterly children's programming report, even if the programming is transmitted by a television network.

This has been demonstrated through several incidents where episodes of Pokémon airing on the former Kids' WB network featured a "fleeting reference" to products such as Eggo waffles, Fruit by the Foot, and the Nintendo Game Boy Nintendo e-Reader accessory mentioning their products having a tie-in to the Pokémon franchise on the air. The FCC has fined individual affiliates of Kids' WB for the violation of the guidelines and upheld the fines on appeal, even though it was the television network which transmitted the content.[5][6]

Meanwhile, promotion for related websites are allowed only under certain circumstances and must specify that the linked site is meant as an advertisement, and must be in compliance with the COPPA Act regarding personal information acquisition for advertisers online for children under thirteen years of age.