Educational Television - Incidental Educational Value

Incidental Educational Value

Some programs are primarily aimed at entertainment, but may contain an incidental amount of educational content. Educational content may be inherent to the design of the show, such as with medical dramas where the plot invariably explores anatomical and biological issues. The Sentinel Award, which is administered by the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center for Communication, the CDC and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), is given each year to programs that address health and medical issues in their storylines. 2006's nominees/winners include:

• Numb3rs - for a storyline about the shortage of organ donations.
• Grey's Anatomy - for story lines about organ transplantation and cancer.
• As the World Turns - for a breast cancer storyline that involved a major character.
• George Lopez - for a storyline about a kidney transplant.
• Ben & Izzy - for a storyline about two children, Ben from America and Izzy from Jordan, who form a close bond despite their different cultural backgrounds.

While some programs are typically "pure" entertainment, they may foray into educational content at select times. For older viewers, individual situation comedy episodes also occasionally serve as educational entertainment vehicles. These episodes are sometimes described in United States television commercial parlance as very special episodes. The American sitcom Happy Days produced an especially effective edutainment episode which was reported to have prompted a 600% increase in the U.S. demand for library cards. As early as the 1950s, children-aimed shows like "Watch Mr Wizard" were made which could be considered edutainment.

On the other hand some programs may seem for the lay public to contain educational content, but are actually completely fictional. It is up to experts to figure out if a specific TV program uses realistic or fictional plots. One example for only seemingly real programs are mockumentaries.