By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 26, 2007

Voluntary parental controls on TV violence aren't working and Congress should step in to address the problem with legislation, federal regulators recommended yesterday in a long-awaited report.

The Federal Communications Commission suggested that Congress could craft an anti-TV violence law that doesn't run afoul of free-speech rights and would protect children. Such a law is necessary, the FCC said, because studies show that children's extended exposure to TV violence can lead to more aggressive behavior.

"Clearly, steps should be taken to protect children from excessively violent programming," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in a statement. "Some might say such action is long overdue."

But the FCC stopped short of proposing a definition of "excessive violence," a legally tricky and controversial question that it left for Congress.

The agency says Congress should act because the V-chip -- a blocking technology first touted by the TV industry almost a decade ago -- has "limited effectiveness" to screen violent content. It also said blocking controls aren't available on a "sufficient number" of cable-connected TV sets to be considered effective.

The FCC produced the recommendations at the behest of 39 lawmakers, who in 2004 asked the agency for advice on how to deal with TV violence and its effect on children. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) has said he will use the report as a basis to draft legislation.

The report recommends that Congress enable the FCC to require cable operators to sell channels "a la carte" -- that is, on an individual basis, instead of in multiple-channel packages that contain both family-friendly and more violent programs. An a la carte system would enable consumers to buy only those channels they want.

Cable and satellite TV industries have long opposed such a mandate as unworkable. "Simple-sounding solutions, such as a la carte regulation of cable TV packages, are misguided and would endanger cable's high-quality family friendly programming, leaving parents and children with fewer viewing options," said Brian Dietz, a spokesman for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

For decades, the FCC has had the legal authority to levy fines on radio and TV stations that broadcast what are deemed sexually explicit or "indecent" words and images, such as Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the 2004 Super Bowl. But the government has never ventured into the realm of penalizing "excessive violence" on TV, considering the difficulty of defining exactly what is over the line.

The agency said Congress could model its anti-violence law on the FCC's "indecency" regulations, which ban salacious or coarse programming from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Empowering government officials to determine what is acceptable for TV, however, makes First Amendment advocates nervous.

"The job of policing TV for children is one for parents, not the government," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's legislative office in Washington. "The government isn't capable of making distinctions about what's violent or gratuitous."

The FCC says it believes it is possible to define "excessively violent" TV programming, but such a definition would have to be "narrowly tailored."

"For example, such a definition might cover depictions of physical force against an animate being that, in context, are patently offensive," the report says.

Government involvement also makes some children's advocates uncomfortable. "TV violence remains a major issue for millions of parents and children across this country," said Jim Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that reviews books, movies and TV shows for families. But, he added: "It's a very tricky area to regulate. You don't want the government telling the creators of '24' which scenes to cut out."

Staff writer Frank Ahrens contributed to this report.