The FCC is finalizing the $24 million penalty in response to complaints filed by the United Church of Christ Office of Communication against Univision and its stations. From a UCC release in 2005 accompanying a petition challenging a Univision station's license renewal:

"'Complices al Rescate' is about suspense, intrigue and love, not education or information," said Veronica Kramer, one of the UCC's complainants and a Cleveland mother of a 7-year-old boy...Almost all of the Univision Network broadcasters relied on "Complices al Rescate" as their only children's educational program.

In 1996, the FCC had announced rules enforcing the 1990 Children's Television Act, enacted in an effort to improve compliance with children's programming rules. Previously, broadcasters had routinely argued, for example, that the old adult cartoons such as the Jetsons and the Flintstones, as well as weak, but kid-aimed shows that served merely as advertising vehicles for children's toys, were educational. Labaton reports that the FCC used the leverage of Univision's desire for final approval of a buyout request to force Univision to admit to the violations and agree to improve its programming. UPDATE: Children's media and Internet guru Jeff Chester's blog entry on the story points out how money and deal-making have gotten in the way of good public policy at the FCC:

(Excerpt) ...this episode illustrates how big media companies don’t really care about the public interest; that the revolving door between the FCC and private industry contributes to a "let's make a deal, anything can go" media industry culture; and that the well-connected treat media outlets as just cash cows...