[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 65 (Tuesday, April 4, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Pages 17658-17659]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-8246]


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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission for OMB 
Review; Comment Request

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The FTC is seeking Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 
clearance under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) for consumer surveys 
to gather information for its study of the marketing of violent 
entertainment to children. The FTC seeks public comment regarding this 
notice, which is the second of two notices required by the PRA for 
information collection requests of this nature.

DATES: Comments on the proposed information requests must be submitted 
on or before May 4, 2000.

ADDRESSES: Send comments regarding the burden estimate, or any other 
aspect of the information collection, including suggestions for 
reducing the burden, to the following addresses: Edward Clarke, Senior 
Economist, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of 
Management and Budget, New Executive Office Building, Room 10202, 
Washington, D.C. 20503, and to Secretary, Federal Trade Commission, 
Room H-159, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580, or 
by e-mail to ([email protected]). The submissions should include the 
submitter's name, address, telephone number and, if available, FAX 
number and e-mail address. All submissions should be captioned 
``Entertainment Industry Study--FTC File No. P994511.''

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:  Requests for additional information, 
such as requests for the Supporting Statement, related attachments, or 
copies of the proposed collection of information, should be addressed 
to Sally Forman Pitofsky, Attorney, Division of Financial Practices, 
Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission, 600 
Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580. Telephone: (202) 
326-3318, E-mail: ([email protected]).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On August 25, 1999, the FTC published a 
Federal Register notice with a 60-day comment period soliciting 
comments from the public concerning the collection of information from: 
(1) members of the motion picture, music recording, and video and 
personal computer game industries and (2) consumers. See 64 FR 46392. 
The second PRA notice for the industry surveys was published on 
November 18, 1999 (64 FR 63046). OMB approved that collection of 
information on December 21, 1999 for use through December 31, 2002. 
This is the second PRA notice regarding the collection of information 
from consumers.

Comments Received

    The FTC received one comment regarding its proposed consumer 
research from the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA). The 
IDSA recommended that the Commission put out for public comment any 
survey instrument used to assess consumer attitudes toward and 
awareness of the IDSA's Entertainment Software Rating Board program and 
that any such research survey only those who actually buy or play video 
games. Consistent with the requirements of the PRA, the survey 
instruments used to study consumer attitudes toward and awareness of 
the various rating or labeling systems will be made available to 
interested parties upon request to Commission staff. Moreover, only 
children whose parents say their children play electronic games will be 
asked to answer surveys regarding video or personal computer games. The 
same approach will be taken for surveying children about their 
experiences regarding motion pictures and music recordings.

Description of the collection of information and proposed use

    The FTC proposes to conduct a telephone survey of 750 parents 
having a child aged 11 to 16 and to survey 400 children aged 11 to 16 
in order to gather specific information on their perceptions of the 
entertainment rating or labeling systems. This information will be 
collected on a voluntary basis, and the identities of the consumers 
will remain confidential. The FTC will contract with a consumer 
research firm to select consumers and conduct the surveys. Survey 
results will help the FTC assess whether and how consumers use the 
rating or labeling systems of the motion picture, recording, and 
electronic games industries.

Estimated Hours Burden

    The FTC will contract with a survey firm to: (1) Identify and 
survey 750 parents with children aged 11 to 16; and (2) survey 400 
children aged 11 to 16.
    The contractor first will ask screener questions of approximately 
5,000 parents in order to provide a large enough random sample for the 
parent telephone survey. After a parent completes the telephone survey, 
the contractor will ask the parent whether a child in the household 
aged 11 to 16 may also participate in it.
    The FTC staff estimates that the screening for the survey will 
consume no more than one minute of each respondent's time. In addition, 
the FTC will pretest the parent survey on approximately 50 respondents 
to ensure that all questions are easily understood. This pretest will 
take approximately 15 minutes per person. Answering the parent survey 
will take approximately 15 minutes per respondent. Answering the 
children survey also will impose an individual burden of approximately 
15 minutes.
    Thus, total hours burden attributable to the consumer research will 
approximate 383 hours, determined as follows:

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                                                                                     Number of
                            Activity                                 Number of       minutes/       Total hours
                                                                    respondents      activity
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Screening.......................................................           5,000               1              83
Parent survey: pretest..........................................              50              15              12
Parent survey...................................................             750              15             188
Children survey.................................................             400              15             100

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    Total.......................................................  ..............  ..............             383
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Estimated Cost Burden

    The cost per respondent should be negligible. Participation is 
voluntary, and will not require any labor expenditures by respondents. 
There are no capital, start-up, operation, maintenance, or other 
similar costs to the respondents.

Debra A. Valentine,
General Counsel.
[FR Doc. 00-8246 Filed 4-3-00; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6750-01-M