[Congressional Bills 103th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1811 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

103d CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 1811

  To require new television sets to have built-in circuitry to allow 
        viewers to block the display of programs rated violent.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

             January 31 (legislative day, January 25), 1994

  Mr. Dorgan introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
   referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To require new television sets to have built-in circuitry to allow 
        viewers to block the display of programs rated violent.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Television Violence Reduction 
Through Parental Empowerment Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) To the fullest extent possible, parents should be 
        empowered with the technology to choose to block the display on 
        their televisions of programs they consider too violent for 
        their children.
            (2) Violence now touches the lives of American children 
        more than adults. From 1982 through 1984, teenagers were the 
        victims of 1,800,000 violent crimes, twice the annual rate of 
        the adult population over age 20. According to the American 
        Academy of Pediatrics, one of every 8 deaths among children age 
        10-14 years old in 1990 was caused by a shooting. Among 
        teenagers and young adults, that figure rose to one of every 
        four deaths.
            (3) Children watch an extensive amount of television. It is 
        estimated that a child watches approximately 22,000 hours of 
        television before finishing high school, almost twice the 
        amount of time spent in the classroom.
            (4) The amount of violence on television has reached 
        epidemic levels. The American Psychological Association 
        estimates that the average child witnesses 8,000 murders and 
        100,000 acts of violence before finishing elementary school.
            (5) Three Surgeon Generals, the National Institute of 
        Mental Health, the Centers for Disease Control, the American 
        Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and 
        the American Psychological Association have concurred for 
        nearly 20 years as to the deleterious effects of television 
        violence on children.
            (6) Despite periodic television industry efforts to reduce 
        the amount of television violence, reductions in the level of 
        televised violence have never been long lasting.
            (7) Parents who are working are unable to constantly 
        monitor the television viewing habits of their children. 
        Advanced television technologies such as channel compression 
        and digitization will allow the expansion of channel capacity 
        to levels even more unmanageable for parents who want to 
        protect their children from televised violence.
            (8) The major broadcast networks and a large number of 
        cable channels have agreed to place parental advisories on 
        programs they consider to be too violent for children. These 
        parental advisories are of limited use to parents if they are 
        not watching television with their children.
            (9) The technology currently exists to equip television 
        sets at a nominal cost to permit parents to block the display 
        of television programs they consider too violent for children. 
        However, this technology will only be effective (A) if all 
        television programmers send any adopted rating or warning 
        system electronically with the program signal, and (B) parents 
        are able to block the display not only of individual programs 
        but to block out automatically and simultaneously all programs 
        with such rating.
            (10) Congress calls upon the broadcast networks, 
        independent television stations, cable programmers, and 
        satellite programmers to protect the parental right to guide 
        the television viewing habits of children by sending any 
        adopted rating or warning system electronically with the 
        program signal.

SEC. 3. EQUIP TELEVISIONS TO BLOCK PROGRAMS.

    Section 303 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 303) is 
amended by adding at the end thereof the following:
    ``(v) Require that (1) apparatus designed to receive television 
signals be equipped with circuitry designed to enable viewers to block 
the display of channels, programs, and time slots; and (2) such 
apparatus enable viewers to block display of all programs with a common 
rating. The requirements of this subsection shall apply when such 
apparatus is manufactured in the United States or imported for use in 
the United States, and its television picture screen is 13 inches or 
greater in size, measured diagonally.''.

SEC. 4. SHIPPING OR IMPORTING.

    (a) Regulations.--Section 330 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 
U.S.C. 330) is amended--
            (1) by redesignating subsection (c) as subsection (d); and
            (2) by adding after subsection (b) the following new 
        section:
    ``(c) No person shall ship in interstate commerce, manufacture, 
assemble, or import from any foreign country into the United States, 
any apparatus described in section 303(v) of this Act except in 
accordance with rules prescribed by the Commission pursuant to the 
authority granted by that section. Such rules shall provide performance 
standards for such blocking technology. Such rules shall further 
require that all such apparatus be able to receive the rating signals 
which have been transmitted by way of line 21 of the vertical blanking 
interval and which conform to the signal and blocking specifications 
established by the Commission. As new video technology is developed, 
the Commission shall take such action as the Commission determines 
appropriate to ensure that blocking service continues to be available 
to consumers. This subsection shall not apply to carriers transporting 
such apparatus without trading it.''.
    (b) Conforming Amendment.--Section 330(d) of such Act, as 
redesignated by this Act, is amended by striking ``section 303(s), and 
section 303(u)'' and inserting in lieu thereof ``and sections 303(s), 
303(u), and 303(v)''.

SEC. 5. EFFECTIVE DATE.

    The amendments made by sections 3 and 4 of this Act shall take 
effect one year after enactment of this Act.

SEC. 6. RULES.

    The Federal Communications Commission shall promulgate rules to 
implement the amendments made by this Act within 180 days after the 
date of its enactment.

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