[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 7, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S4131]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FAMILY-FRIENDLY TELEVISION

 Mr. BOND. Mr. President, today I wish to talk about yet 
another sign of the decline of American culture.
  What ever happened to the family hour? This is the complaint I have 
heard from many moms and dads in Missouri.
  It wasn't so long ago that parents could sit down with their school 
age and even preschool children to watch television from 7-8 p.m. and 
not be worried about the content of the programs.
  For many years, the major television networks voluntarily ran 
programs during the first hour of prime time that were considered 
family friendly, that is, without profanity, violence, or adult themes.
  Shows like ``Happy Days,'' ``MASH,'' ``The Waltons,'' ``Little House 
on the Prairie,'' and ``The Cosby Show'' gave us wonderful family 
entertainment in the evening, not to mention the fact that they were 
great revenue producers for the networks.
  Now, however, if you turn on the television at that time, you are met 
with images so graphic, so sexual, or so violent, that you have to 
channel flip to keep your children from seeing them, or have them leave 
the room, or turn the television off.
  The Media Research Center here in the Washington area will issue a 
report later today on the content of family hour programming.
  Last year they found that vulgar language was used commonly during 
the first hour of prime time. They found that sex outside of marriage 
was portrayed during the family hour eight times more often than sex 
within marriage.
  Mr. President, American families have enough forces working against 
them--struggling to make ends meet, competing priorities, not enough 
time together--not to be able to relax together during the evening and 
enjoy a television program that isn't violent, or graphic, or full of 
profanity.
  That is why I am joining with many other Senators and Congressmen to 
ask Hollywood television executives to bring back the family hour. 
We're not mandating this. We're not passing a law to force it. We're 
simply putting a little polite pressure on the networks to ask them to 
think about American families when they set their programming.
  Now, they may take the line that it is up to parents to make sure 
they monitor their children's TV watching. And I agree. But, what we 
are saying is, give parents some good choices. Give us programming that 
we can watch together, as a family.

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