[Congressional Bills 105th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 471 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







105th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 S. 471

To amend the Television Program Improvement Act of 1990 to restore the 
     applicability of that Act to agreements relating to voluntary 
guidelines governing telecast material and to revise the agreements on 
                    guidelines covered by that Act.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             March 19, 1997

 Mr. Brownback (for himself, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. DeWine, and Mr. Kohl) 
introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the 
           Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend the Television Program Improvement Act of 1990 to restore the 
     applicability of that Act to agreements relating to voluntary 
guidelines governing telecast material and to revise the agreements on 
                    guidelines covered by that Act.

    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 Improvement Act of 
1997''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) Television is seen and heard in nearly every American 
        home and is a uniquely pervasive presence in the daily lives of 
        Americans. The average American home has 2.5 televisions, and a 
        television is turned on in the average American home 7 hours 
        every day.
            (2) Television plays a particularly significant role in the 
        lives of children. Recent figures provided by Nielsen Research 
        show that children between the ages of 2 years and 11 years 
        spend an average of 21 hours in front of a television each 
        week.
            (3) Television has an enormous capability to influence 
        perceptions, especially those of children, of the values and 
        behaviors that are common and acceptable in society.
            (4) The influence of television is so great that its images 
        and messages often can be harmful to the development of 
        children. Social science research amply documents a strong 
        correlation between the exposure of children to televised 
        violence and a number of behavioral and psychological problems.
            (5) Hundreds of studies have proven conclusively that 
        children who are consistently exposed to violence on television 
        have a higher tendency to exhibit violent and aggressive 
        behavior, both as children and later in life.
            (6) Such studies also show that repeated exposure to 
        violent programming causes children to become desensitized to 
        and more accepting of real-life violence and to grow more 
        fearful and less trusting of their surroundings.
            (7) A growing body of social science research indicates 
        that sexual content on television can also have a significant 
        influence on the attitudes and behaviors of young viewers. This 
        research suggests that heavy exposure to programming with 
        strong sexual content contributes to the early commencement of 
        sexual activity among teenagers.
            (8) Members of the National Association of Broadcasters 
        (NAB) adhered for many years to a comprehensive code of conduct 
        that was based on an understanding of the influence exerted by 
        television and on a widely held sense of responsibility for 
        using that influence carefully.
            (9) This code of conduct, the Television Code of the 
        National Association of Broadcasters, articulated this sense of 
        responsibility as follows:
                    (A) ``[I]n selecting program subjects and themes, 
                great care must be exercised to be sure that the 
                treatment and presentation are made in good faith and 
                not for the purpose of sensationalism or to shock or 
                exploit the audience or appeal to prurient interests or 
                morbid curiosity.''
                    (B) ``Broadcasters have a special responsibility 
                toward children. Programs designed primarily for 
                children should take into account the range of 
                interests and needs of children, from instructional and 
                cultural material to a wide variety of entertainment 
                material. In their totality, programs should contribute 
                to the sound, balanced development of children to help 
                them achieve a sense of the world at large and informed 
                adjustments to their society.''
                    (C) ``Violence, physical or psychological, may only 
                be projected in responsibly handled contexts, not used 
                exploitatively. Programs involving violence present the 
                consequences of it to its victims and perpetrators. 
                Presentation of the details of violence should avoid 
                the excessive, the gratuitous and the instructional.''
                    (D) ``The presentation of marriage, family, and 
                similarly important human relationships, and material 
                with sexual connotations, shall not be treated 
                exploitatively or irresponsibly, but with 
                sensitivity.''
                    (E) ``Above and beyond the requirements of the law, 
                broadcasters must consider the family atmosphere in 
                which many of their programs are viewed. There shall be 
                no graphic portrayal of sexual acts by sight or sound. 
                The portrayal of implied sexual acts must be essential 
                to the plot and presented in a responsible and tasteful 
                manner.''
            (10) The NAB abandoned the code of conduct in 1983 after 
        three provisions of the code restricting the sale of 
        advertising were challenged by the Department of Justice on 
        antitrust grounds and a Federal district court issued a summary 
        judgment against the NAB regarding one of the provisions on 
        those grounds. However, none of the programming standards of 
        the code were challenged.
            (11) While the code of conduct was in effect, its 
        programming standards were never found to have violated any 
        antitrust law.
            (12) Since the NAB abandoned the code of conduct, 
        programming standards on broadcast and cable television have 
        deteriorated dramatically. Lurid and sensational talk shows are 
        aired regularly throughout the day and profanities have become 
        commonplace during the early hours of prime time, when millions 
        of young children are watching.
            (13) In the absence of effective programming standards, 
        public concern about the impact of television on children, and 
        on society as a whole, has risen substantially. Polls routinely 
        show that more than 80 percent of Americans are worried by the 
        increasingly graphic nature of sex, violence, and vulgarity on 
        television and by the amount of programming that openly 
        sanctions or glorifies criminal, antisocial, and degrading 
        behavior.
            (14) At the urging of Congress, the television industry has 
        taken some steps to respond to public concerns about 
        programming standards and content. The broadcast television 
        industry agreed in 1992 to adopt a set of voluntary guidelines 
        designed to ``proscribe gratuitous or excessive portrayals of 
        violence''. Shortly thereafter, both the broadcast and cable 
        television industries agreed to conduct independent studies of 
the violent content in their programming and make those reports public.
            (15) In 1996, the television industry as a whole made a 
        commitment to develop a comprehensive rating system to label 
        programming that may be harmful or inappropriate for children. 
        That system was implemented at the beginning of this year.
            (16) Despite these recent efforts to respond to public 
        concern about the impact of television on children, millions of 
        Americans, especially parents with young children, remain angry 
        and frustrated at the sinking standards of television 
        programming, the reluctance of the industry to police itself, 
        and the harmful influence of television on the well-being of 
        the children and the values of the United States.
            (17) The Department of Justice issued a ruling in 1993 
        indicating that additional efforts by the television industry 
        to develop and implement voluntary programming guidelines would 
        not violate the antitrust laws. The ruling states that ``such 
        activities may be likened to traditional standard setting 
        efforts that do not necessarily restrain competition and may 
        have significant procompetitive benefits. * * * Such guidelines 
        could serve to disseminate valuable information on program 
        content to both advertisers and television viewers. Accurate 
        information can enhance the demand for, and increase the output 
        of, an industry's products or services.''.
            (18) The Children's Television Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-
        437) states that television broadcasters in the United States 
        have a clear obligation to meet the educational and 
        informational needs of children.
            (19) Several independent analyses have demonstrated that 
        the television broadcasters in the United States have not 
        fulfilled their obligations under the Children's Television Act 
        and have not noticeably expanded the amount of educational and 
        informational programming directed at young viewers since the 
        enactment of the Act.

SEC. 3. PURPOSE.

    (a) Purpose.--The purpose of this Act is to permit the broadcast 
and cable television industry--
            (1) to work collaboratively to respond to growing public 
        concern about the current content of television programming and 
        the harmful influence of such programming on children;
            (2) to develop a set of voluntary programming guidelines 
        similar to those contained in the National Association of 
        Broadcasters Television Code; and
            (3) to implement the guidelines in a manner that alleviates 
        the negative impact of television programming on the 
        development of children in the United States and stimulates the 
        development and broadcast of educational and informational 
        programming for such children.
    (b) Construction.--This Act may not be construed as--
            (1) providing the Federal Government with any authority to 
        restrict the content of television programming that is in 
        addition to the authority to restrict such programming under 
        law as of the date of enactment of this Act; or
            (2) approving any action of the Federal Government to 
        restrict the content of such programming that is in addition to 
        any actions undertaken for that purpose by the Federal 
        Government under law as of such date.

SEC. 4. APPLICABILITY OF TELEVISION PROGRAM IMPROVEMENT ACT TO 
              AGREEMENTS ON GUIDELINES FOR TELECAST MATERIAL.

    (a) Restoration of Applicability.--Subsection (d) of section 501 of 
the Television Program Improvement Act of 1990 (title V of Public Law 
101-650; 104 Stat. 5127; 47 U.S.C. 303c) is amended--
            (1) by striking ``Limitations.--(1)'' and inserting 
        ``Limitation.--''; and
            (2) by striking paragraph (2).
    (b) Scope of Exemption.--Subsection (c) of such section is amended 
by striking ``designed to alleviate'' and all that follows and 
inserting the following: ``designed--
            ``(1) to alleviate the negative impact of telecast material 
        such as, but not limited to, violence, sexual content, criminal 
        behavior, or profane language; or
            ``(2) to promote telecast material that is educational, 
        informational, or otherwise beneficial to the development of 
        children.''.
    (c) Limitations.--Subsection (d) of such section, as amended by 
subsection (a) of this section, is further amended by striking ``which 
results in a boycott of any person.'' and inserting ``which--
            ``(1) results in a boycott of any person; or
            ``(2) concerns the purchase or sale of advertising, 
        including (without limitation) restrictions on the number of 
        products that may be advertised in a commercial, the number of 
        times a program may be interrupted for commercials, and the 
        number of consecutive commercials permitted within each 
        interruption.''.
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