“I congratulate
all five Commissioners for
tackling head-on a very vexing
issue in our society today.
While violence has been part of
dramatic story-telling for
millennia, the violence on
television today is shockingly
graphic and offensively
gratuitous and it is being
pumped directly into every home
in the nation on a daily basis.
The scientific community has
repeatedly stated its consensus
opinion that such material poses
a grave risk, particularly to
children. With its report, the
FCC has taken its public
interest obligation seriously in
addressing the issue and
offering a broad range of
solutions,” said PTC™ President
Tim Winter.
“We support the
notion that the volume and
degree of violence on broadcast
television should be reduced,
especially during the times of
day when children comprise a
significant portion of the
viewing audience. And we
applaud the Commission’s
endorsement for parents, not the
cable industry, to determine
which networks we subscribe to
and pay for.
“We desperately
hope that this report will
achieve what has heretofore been
fruitless: To motivate the
industry to step up to the
plate, take responsibility for
its product, and fix a problem
that it has not only created but
perpetuated. And make no
mistake about it: the industry
has the ability to fix it. The
question is whether it will do
so.
“If we look at
the industry’s 50+ year track
record for responsible
self-governance in its use of
the public’s airwaves, the
outlook for action is
disheartening. The industry
commissioned its own research
study to disprove what over a
thousand other medical and
clinical reports have concluded
– that violent media consumption
has a harmful effect on
children. Industry executives
testified before Congress that
they would impose a
zero-tolerance policy for
indecent material, and then they
filed suit in Federal Court to
use the F-word in front of
children. Rather than changing
its behavior, the industry hired
the most celebrated and storied
lobbyist in the nation’s history
to get the Congress off their
collective backs, and then they
proclaimed a combined $550
million initiative to educate
parents about blocking
technology – an initiative that
has been proven to be a complete
and utter failure. And recently
the industry heralded its TV
ratings system as a panacea,
even though they originally
denounced the idea as heresy and
censorship. This ratings system
has been proven to be arbitrary,
inaccurate, and entirely
self-serving.
“Clearly we are
on a path towards legislation.
In fact, the legislation has
already been written. The
question is whether this report
will motivate the industry to do
the right thing. We sincerely
hope it will do so,” Winter
concluded.
