[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 26 (Thursday, February 29, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1467-S1468]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  AGREEMENT TO CREATE TV RATING SYSTEM

 Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, a popular TV show in the 1960's, 
The Outer Limits, began each episode with these words: Do not attempt 
to adjust your television set. We control the horizontal. We control 
the vertical. . .
  Those words symbolized the kind of control the TV industry has had 
over what viewers could watch in living rooms all across the country. 
For a long time, we didn't mind, as TV offered plenty of quality shows, 
with a few inoffensive bombs sprinkled in here and there.
  But in recent years, the domination of the broadcast industry over 
what we see on TV has grated on the sensibilities of the American 
people, especially as TV has gone beyond the outer limits of good taste 
and decency, and into a twilight zone of immorality and degradation.
  The Outer Limits TV show ended each week with the announcer telling 
viewers, ``We now return control of your television set,'' and that is 
what has begun to happen today.
  This is an historic day for millions of American families. The major 
television networks and the people responsible for most of what we see 
on TV have agreed to create a rating system for their programs. This 
rating system will be compatible with the V-chip that television sets 
will carry in the near future. I would like to commend the 
entertainment industry leaders who have taken this step forward and 
agreed to implement a rating system and embrace the V-chip. I have no 
doubt that this will be seen as both a socially responsible and a good 
business decision in the long term. I have no illusions however, about 
how difficult it was for the entertainment leaders who met with the 
President to take this step.
  Today's news means parents will have a new tool to use as they 
struggle to raise their children in a healthy, moral environment. 
Parents will be able to block out programs that they deem inappropriate 
for their children.
  As co-sponsor of the V-chip legislation with Senator Kent Conrad and 
Representative Ed Markey, I am very pleased that the V-chip will soon 
become reality. President Bill Clinton deserves a lot of credit for 
making this major step forward possible. Beginning with his support for 
the V-chip last July, and continuing through his strong endorsement in 
the State of the Union Address, President Clinton, along with Vice 
President Gore, has helped move this issue front and center, and 
encouraged the television industry to abandon their opposition to 
ratings and the V-chip.
  We all will be watching what the television industry does to 
implement this new rating system. I have some concerns about how the 
ratings will be structured, because the credibility of that system is 
essential if parents are going to be able to use and trust the V-chip. 
The ratings must be tough enough to allow parents to prevent their kids 
from seeing too much violence, sexual activity, vulgarity, and even 
sexual innuendo, which has inundated many prime time television shows 
in recent years. A Seinfeld or Friends episode about masturbation or 
orgasms might qualify for a PG rating in a movie theater but should get 
the equivalent of an R when it comes on at 8 o clock at night.
  We must also guard against a rating system becoming a cover for even 
more inappropriate content in television programming. The parents of 
America will not stand still if the networks use the existence of 
ratings as an excuse to produce even more explicit and offensive shows.
  But, if properly designed and widely used by parents, a rating system 
operating through a V-chip can change the economics of the television 
industry, 

[[Page S1468]]
make quality programming more profitable than ever, and halt the 
current downward spiral in which the networks are too often competing 
with each other in a sleaze contest to capture their lucrative slice of 
a particular demographic pie.
  Today, the V in V-chip stands for victory, and the struggle to 
reclaim our public airwaves from the sleaze which too often dominates 
what is broadcast will continue. Ratings alone do not solve the 
problem. You can rate garbage, but you haven't changed the fact that it 
is still garbage. As my friend Bill Bennett said yesterday in a news 
conference we held with Senator Nunn and leaders from the Christian, 
Jewish, and Moslem organizations, a sign in front of a polluted lake 
does let you know that it's polluted, but it doesn't mean you can fish 
or swim in it. We need to clean up the polluted lake that is American 
television today, and take out the garbage.
  There are some television programs that no rating will make 
acceptable. Last week, Sally Jessy Raphael put a 12-year-old girl on 
her stage--a girl who had been sexually victimized repeatedly by older 
men--and verbally abused her in front of a nationwide audience. That is 
a form of child abuse in itself, and it's totally unacceptable, rating 
or no rating.
  That's the big, next task for the television industry--to use its 
incredible creative genius to bring us more programs that will elevate, 
not denigrate, our culture and our children.
  There is probably no other force around that dominates the lives of 
young people in America today as thoroughly as television. Millions of 
children spend more time in front of a TV than they do talking with 
their parents, praying in church, or listening to their teachers.
  The TV industry must do more to clean up their programs. Get rid of 
the violence that is still too pervasive, and damaging to 
impressionable young minds. Get rid of the gratuitous sex scenes, the 
common use of vulgarity, and the heavy sexual innuendo that dominates 
so many programs. You don't need to get down in the gutter to attract a 
big audience and make a profit. You do need to begin to draw a line, 
and say to yourselves and your producers, writers and actors--we won't 
go beyond that line, even if we can make more money, because it is 
wrong and it is bad for our country and our children.
  One way the television networks can demonstrate they mean business 
when it comes to helping America and its parents is to adopt a code of 
conduct to govern their programming. They used to have active standards 
and practices divisions, but those divisions have been sub-standard and 
out-of-practice in recent years, and need to be bolstered and empowered 
by a strongly worded code of conduct that sets decent standards.
  Another way the networks can show better corporate citizenship is to 
give us back the family hour. Give America's parents at least one hour 
at night when they can sit on the couch and watch TV with their 
children without fear of having their values insulted. Many parents, 
including my wife and I, have simply given up on network TV at night, 
choosing a family-oriented cable channel instead, or just reading or 
relaxing together. But tens of millions of families have no access to 
cable, and have little choice about what they can watch.
  There is no law, no business imperative, no reason not to give the 
American people decent, quality programs from 8 pm to 9 pm every night. 
To paraphrase the line in Field of Dreams, air them, and we will come. 
We will watch good TV.
  Mr. President, I am not a child of the information age. I am a child 
of the television age. I was raised watching TV, and I have watched TV 
with three generations of my children. I love TV, but I am not happy 
with what TV has become.
  It is not too late to reverse course. The degradation of America's 
culture can be stopped. We can't go back to the 1950's, but we can go 
back to a time of decency and quality television.
  We celebrate today the news that the television industry will develop 
a rating system for its programs and support the V-chip that will give 
parents more power to control over what their children see on TV. And 
we encourage the television executives to see today as a beginning, not 
an end. A beginning to a new partnership with America's families.
  ``A rising tide raises all ships,'' President Kennedy said, in 
speaking of economic growth. The same can be said of the tide of 
cultural decency. American television can uplift our people, or it can 
degrade them. It can inspire, or it can dispirit. Today, we hope the 
tide has begun to shift. Will the rising tide be sustained? All we can 
say now, is, ``stay tuned.''

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