CFK Reports From: Parental Power: TV Indecency, the FCC, and the Media's Response
Event: Policy forum
Organized By: Cato Institute Center for Constitutional Studies
Where/When: Cato Institute, Washington, DC, Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Report by: Susan Phillips

Jack Valenti, one of the key architects of the much-maligned but much-relied-on movie rating system, argued at this Cato Institute event that despite concerns about violence, language, sex and general crudeness on broadcast, cable and satellite TV programs, technology already gives parents near-total control of the TV content that comes into their homes. The solution to concerns over the impact of certain types of content on children and teens, suggested Valenti, was quite simply parental empowerment and parental exercise of responsibility.

Leslie Marx, chief economist for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), took exception to Valenti's position, saying that if TV content providers "really want to empower parents, then they should really empower them" by offering them the option to purchase cable stations, or even individual programs, "a la carte." She suggested that in addition, if consumers sign up for a particular channel but then block a show for whatever reason, that they could be reimbursed some portion of their monthly charge for that channel.

Marx said that as an economist, she couldn't address Valenti's position that the FCC's effort to levy large fines against broadcasters for indecency is unconstitutional.

Valenti said that a planned 18-month campaign being financed by the television industry to the tune of $300 million in donated advertising time will fully educate parents to take advantage of the tools at their disposal, which he insisted are far more "user friendly" than some parents may realize. As a result, said Valenti, FCC efforts to enforce "vague, ill-defined and very, very fuzzy" indecency standards on broadcasters are not only unconstitutional, but unnecessary.

"The only way for the FCC to deal with indecency…is to arm parents with the information that they have total power (over the television content in their homes)," said Valenti. "The FCC does not have that power. Parents do."

Valenti said that the V-chip now incorporated into all televisions manufactured for sale in the U.S., along with blocking technologies for cable and satellite content, make it easy for parents to shut off the stream of objectionable shows. In addition, he said that market forces are driving cable and satellite companies to create "tiers" or "bundles" of programming that meet the needs of different types of households.

He said that the industry's public information campaign, with heavy Ad Council support and creative work from the ad agency McCann Erickson, will include outreach to PTAs, churches and retailers.

However, in response to a question, Valenti acknowledged that while there will be some Spanish-language advertising, the campaign does not include any focused outreach to language-minority or low-income parents. He did say that the media campaign would be so prominent that the industry believes virtually every adult with a television in their home would see the ads.

Cato has a podcast and summary on its website.