Children's Television
Online Filing System
User's Manual

Version 2.0
May 14, 2007

Introduction

Document Contents

• Introduction
• Quick Start
• Detailed Reference

Version Capabilities

Related Documentation

For more information about Children's Television Programming requirements, visit the FCC Media Bureau's web page or the KidVid Top Level page at http://www.fcc.gov/kidvid.

An HTML version of the official instructions for the FCC 398 can be found at:

• Instructions

A PDF version of the FCC 398 report (not for editing) and instructions can be found at:

• http://www.fcc.gov/Forms/Form398/398.pdf

  or by clicking on the following link: PDF FCC 398

You can read a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file containing helpful hints and workarounds for common problems, at:

• KidVid Freqeuently Asked Questions.

Electronic Form Functions

• Start with a blank or partially completed FCC Form 398.
• Resize the FCC Form 398 depending on the number of programs for which the licensee wants to report information.
• Save the FCC Form 398 and its data to a local file.
• Perform checks on the entered data.
• Get a version of the FCC Form 398 for printing.
• Electronically submit the FCC Form 398 to the FCC.
• Access the User's Manual and the official FCC Form 398 instructions.

Electronic Form Introduction

Quick Start

1. Start up.

   Use your browser to open the location of the top-level web page for the KidVid Filing System using the KidVid link.

2. Get a blank 398.

   Click on the "KidVid Electronic Filing" link in the left column. This will retrieve a blank form from the FCC server and send it back to be displayed by your browser.

3. Enter values.

   Enter the values into the form fields.

4. Get some help.

   Get some help for Question 4 in the Analog Core Programming section by clicking on (the link associated with) the number 5. Your browser will display the official instructions and place you at the section describing Question 4. Use your browser's Back command to return to the form.

5. Resize the form.

   Imagine that you have a few Analog Core Programs to report. Enter the number of Program Reports you wish to enter for that section and click the [Add] button. This will add space to provide information for that number of programs.

6. Print the form.

   Press the [Report to Print] button to generate an FCC 398 Report that contains the data currently showing on the form. After this report is displayed in your browser, use your browser's menu to go to "File" then select "Print Preview", this will allow you to see the report broken up into different pages. From there you can select the "Print" command from the Preview screen.

7. Prepare to save the data.

   Press the [Update Local Data] button to cause the current data values to be copied into your form so that the values can be saved to a local file using your browser's Save As command. For more information, see the Saving Data section.

8. Save the form.

   Use your browser's Save As command to specify a folder/directory, a file name, and a file format of HTML.

9. Check Data

   Press the 'Check Data' Button to run a validation check against the Form. Any errors will be shown at the top of the Form.

10. File the FCC Form 398.

    Press the [File FCC 398] button to submit the form to the FCC server for insertion into the database. The processing script on the server returns information to your browser if the filing is accepted (including a confirmation number). If the submission is unsuccessful, error messages are returned to your browser.

• Filing the 398
• Starting the System
• User Interface
• Available Help
• Printing the Form
• Quarterly Reporting Periods
• Multiple Answer Questions
• Saving Data
• Managing Files
• Checking Data
• Form Versions
• Data Types
• Field Names and Sizes
• Known Problems and Issues

If the Licensee is not required to submit any exhibits, an HTML page is constructed containing the outcome of the processing (including, for example, any error messages or that the filing was accepted). If the Licensee has answered 'No' to Question 7c or Question 11, the 'Exhibit Upload Page' will be presented to the Licensee. If an FCC Form 398 has already been filed for the specified call sign and quarter date, subsequent submissions are treated as revised filings that replace earlier filings in the Children's Television database.

Starting the System

The top-level web page for the online filing system can be found at: http://www.fcc.gov/kidvid, or by clicking on the KidVid link.

Click on the "KidVid Electronic Filing" link in the left column. This will retrieve a blank form from the FCC server and send it back to be displayed by your browser.

Form Versions

User Interface

The electronic FCC Form 398 is implemented using HTML (HyperText Markup Language) 3.2 constructs. The layout also uses HTML 3.0 TABLE tags. Data values are input using an HTML FORM with field types of TEXT, RADIO, TEXTAREA, and SELECT. The system also utilizes in browser JavaScript and (CSS) Cascading Sytle Sheets. If these constructs are unfamiliar to you, you may want to learn more about HTML and WWW browsers before filling out the FCC Form 398. However, this is not necessary to use the online filing system.

Hypertext links are available at each numbered question on the form. These links take the user to the appropriate location where the question is described in the official instructions. Links are also available within the descriptions of the form's buttons to take the user to the relevant section in the User's Manual where they are discussed.

Available Help

This User's Manual provides detailed help about the electronic FCC Form 398 and its usage. We recommend that all users read this manual prior to filling out the FCC Form 398. A link exists on the form itself to retrieve this document. Also, the descriptions for all of the buttons on the form contain links to the relevant location in the User's Manual. When finished, the user can invoke their browser's Back command to return to the form.

Printing the Form

Additionally, an accepted filing can be retrieved from the database in a printable format (without HTML FORM constructs). See FCC 398 Report.

Quarterly Reporting Periods

These buttons do not submit the data for checking or for entry into the database - they only adjust the size of the FCC Form 398. A side-effect of this process is that the data gets copied locally (see the Saving Data section), which means you can save the current form at this point.

Note that no Program Report entry areas will appear until they are added by the user.

Saving Data

Since HTML is a markup language, the data values that you enter into HTML fields are not really in your form when you type them. In order to make sure that the FCC Form 398 contains the data that you have entered, you must send it to the FCC server (temporarily - it is not entered into the database) which will send back the same form, but with the data copied into it. To do this, use the [Update Local Data] button to copy the data values. Note that the [Add] and [Delete] buttons also "Update Local Data" after adjusting the number of tables. If you add/change any data values, you must press one of these buttons before invoking the Save As command. If not, the changes you have made since the last "Update Local Data" occurrence will not be saved to your local file. After pressing one of these buttons, the copied/updated data values become the defaults for your form when you press the [Reset] button.

Technically, the saving data process puts values in the VALUE attributes of the INPUT form objects when the FCC Form 398 is regenerated. This ensures that the values are in the HTML when the user saves the HTML document to a local file. Only then can a user invoke the browser's Save As command to save the file.

To use your browser's File/Save As command to save the form, select the appropriate folder and specify an appropriate name (e.g., kv2001q2.htm). For the file type or format, if given a choice by your browser, select a type of "HTML" or "Source" (depending on the term used by your operating system), particularly not "Text". Later, when you want to continue filling out the form, you can use your browser's File/Open File command to read in the file that you previously saved.
At this point, the text may not look well formatted, this may happen if your browser did not save the appropriate style sheet. Click the [Update Local Data] button and the form will appear normally.

Managing Files

There are a number of types of data that the form will contain. From the HTML perspective, all of the input will be ASCII strings entered by the user. Most fields will use the HTML input type TEXT. The HTML attribute MAXLENGTH is used to limit the size of field data. The attribute SIZE has been adjusted to make the field look the best (and most like the printed form).

Fields that allow the user to enter multiple lines of text are implemented using the TEXTAREA HTML tag. The ROWS and COLS attributes have been adjusted to make the field look like the printed form.

Fields with two alternatives (such as, "Yes" or "No") are implemented using the HTML input type RADIO. The user must press one of the radio buttons to signify the choice.

Fields that require that the user choose one of a set of values are implemented using the SELECT HTML tag. These fields are usually formatted as a drop down menu by web browsers.

The fields that require one or more dates/times (such as the "Days/Times Program Regularly Scheduled" field) expect a string of characters. We have not attempted to require a particular format since there is a lot of variation in stations' schedules and in people's preferences for specifying them. For example, a program may be scheduled:

• Every Monday
• Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
• Every weekday
• Each weekend day
• Every first, third, and possibly fifth Saturday
• etc.

The specification of times is also subject to similar preferences with 12 or 24 hour clocks, "am", "A.M.", etc. There may also be programs that are scheduled more that once in a day. All of these possibilities make it difficult to invent a standard format that would be powerful enough to handle most cases yet easy enough to use for common situations. We still would like to attempt to make these data fields look somewhat similar across licensees' reports. Therefore, we are recommending a format but not requiring it. Note that the string values are not processed before being inserted into the database.

We have chosen that these fields be separated by commas (and optional whitespace) and formatted in one of two ways:

1. A general day and time, with day range and a time as follows:

      <day range> HH:MM XM

   Days in the day range are represented by one or two upper case characters: (SU M T W TH F SA). The days can be concatenated together or a dash can signify a range. Examples of valid entries are "M 11:00", "M-F 14:30", "SASU 9:00", or even, if you insist, "Saturday at 10:00". You can pick your own favorite format for "AM", "p.m.", etc. after the hours and minutes.

   We have not recommended a format for easily specifying an occasional scheduled program, for instance, that is shown on: "the first Wednesday of each month". The licensee should determine the actual dates for the particular quarter and use the date/time format.

2. A particular date and time, formatted as follows:

       MMDDYY HH:MM

   The first digit in the month designation is optional (that is, you can use "9" for September as well as "09"). The day designation requires both digits (such that you cannot use "111" for November first, but must use "1101".) The year designation is optional.

Note: These are only guidelines that are attempting to provide a semi-standard, easy way to specify scheduling information. No checking is performed on these strings. Since there is not an enforced standard, there are no informational reports from which a user could get information on programs, for example, that are shown on a particular day of the week. Local television guides or web sites with program schedules may be able to provide this kind of information that can not be retrieved from the stations' FCC Form 398 filings.

Field Names and Sizes

Problems and Issues

Strange Characters when copying and pasting from Microsoft Word

Internet Explorer 8 may be experiencing problems

If you have any questions or encounter any problems or bugs, please contact Ron Graser, of the Video Services Division at 202-418-1600.