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William Kennard
Chairman
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Room 8-B201
Washington, DC 20554
Dear Chairman Kennard: We are writing to express our serious concern about the rapidly declining standards of broadcast television, the impact this decline is having on our children and our country, and the meaning of the pledge that broadcasters take to serve the public interest. As you well know, frustration and anger about falling standards have been voiced for some time by millions of American parents, who are fed up with the rising tide of glorified violence and increasingly explicit sexual content flooding into their homes through their televisions. In response to this outcry, the broadcast industry has taken modest steps to diminish the threat of television violence, reducing the amount of gratuitous murder and mayhem aired during primetime, as well as implementing a content rating system to work in concert with the V-chip and help parents block out the excessive displays of violence that can be seen at all times of the day. However, the enclosed study by the Center on Media and Public Affairs documents just how excessive the violence still is, particularly in first-run syndicated programs, which averaged 37 violent acts per episode during the 1998-99 season. At the same time, there has been a gross inflation of sex and vulgarity on free, over-the-air television, particularly in the early hours of primetime. This trend is readily apparent to even the most casual viewer, and has been confirmed in detail by a number of analyses. In its study "Sex on TV," the most extensive survey of sexual messages on television ever conducted, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that: 1) 67 percent of all network primetime shows aired during the 1997-98 season contained talk about sex or sexual behavior, with those shows averaging 5.3 scenes with sex per hour, and nearly one in 10 shows depicted or strongly implied copulation; 2) 77 percent of all primetime sitcoms contained sexual content, with those shows averaging nearly 6.7 scenes with sex per hour; and 3) 85 percent of all soap opera episodes contained sexual content, with an average of 4.4 scenes with sex per hour. Looking more narrowly at the first hour of primetime, the traditional "family hour," the Parents Television Council (PTC) found an average of 3.69 sexual references an hour in network programming reviewed over a two week period during the May 1999 sweeps -- a 77 percent increase in just the past year and a half. The Fox Network topped all of its competitors, averaging 6.8 sexual references an hour. Copies of both reports are enclosed for your reference. To put this trend in historical perspective, the PTC issued another study earlier this year comparing four weeks of primetime network programming from the fall of 1989 to four weeks in 1999. The PTC found that the sheer amount of vulgar and sexual content had grown almost exponentially -- the amount of sexual material increased by more than 300 percent, while the use of crude language increased by more than 500 percent, to nearly five instances for every hour of programming. The study also showed that the quality of these messages had changed just as dramatically as the quantity, with the dialogue and sexual depictions becoming far more explicit. A copy of this report, "What a Difference a Decade Makes," is enclosed. Much of this content is clearly unsuitable for children, millions of whom are watching during the hours these programs are regularly broadcast. In fact, a case could be made that portions of some programs are so offensive that they meet the Commission's legal standard for indecency -- "language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities." Regardless of whether these programs crossed that line, their boundary-pushing content should remind us why that line was drawn in the first place. Congress passed a law limiting the broadcast of indecent programming to certain hours to advance a compelling public policy interest – protecting children from sexual messages that we as a society agree may be harmful to their moral, emotional, and physical development, the same reason we prohibit the sale of pornographic magazines to minors. Several major court rulings upholding the indecency standard have cited this compelling interest, FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978), Action for Children's Television v. FCC, 852 F.2d 1332 (D.C. Cir. 1988), Action for Children's Television v. FCC, 932 F.2d 1504 (D.C. Cir. 1991), Action for Children's Television v. FCC, 58 F.3d 654 (D.C. Cir. 1995) ("ACT III"), along with another compelling interest of "supporting parental supervision of what children see and hear on the public airwaves." ACT III, at 661. Since then, as sexual content on television has grown more and more graphic and prurient, a number of leading child development experts have voiced concern about the way in which television, in conjunction with the rest of the sex-saturated electronic media, is contributing to the sexualization of children at a younger and younger age. The research community is particularly concerned about the context of the sexual messages many children are receiving from television, in which sex is often treated as a recreational activity with little if any consideration of consequences or connection to love or marriage. The Kaiser Family Foundation's "Sex on TV" study found that only 1 in 9 primetime network shows with sexual content include any reference to risk or responsibility, and that only three percent of the primetime sitcoms, which have the heaviest concentration of sexual content, include a risk/responsibility reference. Scientific research regarding the influence of television's sexual messages on children is more limited than the research regarding the effects of violent programming. But as far back as 1982, the National Institutes of Health declared television to be an "important sex educator," and since then, the studies that have been done, according to University of North Carolina Professor Jane Brown, a leading expert in this field, confirm the NIH's determination. After performing a survey of the available research, Dr. Brown testified at a Senate hearing that these studies "consistently point to a relationship between exposure to sexual content and sexual beliefs, attitudes and behaviors." And last fall, the University of Michigan released a study showing that young women who watch as little as 22 hours of prime time television a month are more likely to endorse a "recreational view of sex" than those who watch less. The lead researcher, Professor L. Monique Ward, concluded from this finding that TV's countless verbal and visual references to sexual relationships clearly influence sexual attitudes, expectations, and therefore behavior. These findings were reinforced by an eye-opening article published by The New York Times on April 2nd under the headline "The Face of Teenage Sex Grows Younger." The Times cited several studies, leading experts, and interviews with children themselves to show that a disturbingly high number of pre-adolescents are engaging in sexual activity today. According to one study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 17 percent of a national sample of thousands of seventh and eighth graders reported having had sexual relations; other smaller studies put the percentage even higher. In explaining this phenomenon, the experts quoted in the article most frequently pointed to the alluring sexual messages the culture is raining down on children. Just as revealing were the comments from a 13-year-old Manhattan boy, who traced his desire to have sex to watching Fox's "Beverly Hills 90210" on television as a third-grader. "I was interested," he said. "The people were cool. I wanted to try what they were doing on the show." A copy of the Times article is enclosed for your reference. The connection demonstrated in the research is intuitively apparent. The Supreme Court, as noted in Bethel School District v. Fraser, has long recognized "the obvious concern on the part of parents" [emphasis added] to protect children from exposure to "sexually explicit, indecent, or lewd speech." Bethel School District 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 684 (1986). That concern is especially obvious as it relates to the medium of television, which, as the Court declared in the Pacifica ruling, is "uniquely pervasive" in American society and "uniquely accessible" to young children. Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 748, 749. We cite these cases not to argue for more government restrictions on television content, but simply to point out that our highest court, not to mention most parents and child development experts, have long concluded that hypersexual messages can be harmful to young children. The only people who seem to question this are broadcast industry executives. Critics have repeatedly asked the networks to recognize the enormous influence they wield and tone down the sexual content of the programming they air when large numbers of children are in the audience. The industry has for the most part responded by denying there is any problem. In fact, some network officials have admitted that their programming strategy is to increase the sex and vulgarity quotient in order to compete with the racier fare on HBO and other cable networks and to attract their desired younger and ideally male audience -- a strategy that is often euphemistically referred to as "pushing the envelope." One network leader explained it this way: "We're trying to be relevant and entertaining to our audience, young adults, 18 to 49." The problem is, of course, that these shows are being broadcast when millions of children well below the age of 18 are watching. This "anything-goes" attitude is a far cry from the profession of responsibility made by broadcasters through the old National Association of Broadcasters TV Code, which, as you know, was the industry's vehicle for self-regulation for three decades. The NAB Code acknowledged that television requires "exceptional awareness of considerations peculiar to the medium. . . [I]n selecting program subjects and themes, great care must be exercised to be sure that the treatment and presentation are made in good faith and not for the purpose of sensationalism or to shock or exploit the audience or appeal to prurient interests or morbid curiosity." The Code went on to state that broadcasters have a "special responsibility" to children. "In the course of a child's development, numerous social factors and forces, including television, [emphasis added] affect the ability of the child to make the transition to adult society . . . Because children are allowed to watch programs designed primarily for adults, broadcasters should take this practice into account in the presentation of material in such programs when children may constitute a substantial segment of the audience." The denials and excuses we routinely hear today from the industry raise serious questions about the commitment of many broadcasters to serving the public interest, as they are obligated to do by law. We must remember that broadcasters are trustees of a public resource worth billions of dollars, which they get access to for free, in return for a pledge to act as responsible stewards of the airwaves. The license they receive is a legally-binding contract, an especially important one given television's immense influence on our children and our culture. And much to our dismay, the evidence presented in this letter strongly suggests that many licensees, along with their network parents, are breaching this public trust, and harming rather than serving the public interest. Consequently, we feel that the time has come for the Commission to engage in a broad reexamination of the public interest standard and the license renewal process, to determine if in fact the broadcasters are serving "the public interest, convenience and necessity," and whether the standard of service we expect of broadcasters needs to be clarified. The Commission recently took the first step toward such a reexamination in December by issuing a notice of inquiry regarding the public interest obligations of broadcasters during and after the transition to digital transmission. We applaud your initiative, and strongly urge the Commission to use this inquiry to study the issues we have raised in this letter. The apportionment of the digital spectrum, which the Commission estimated to be worth as much as $70 billion, will enable licensees to transmit as many as six channels in the near future where there was previously only one. We believe it is more than appropriate to ask them how they plan to utilize this new capability to serve the public interest. As part of this review, we would ask you to comment on the advisability of resurrecting an industry-adopted code of conduct to protect against the further erosion of broadcasting standards and to provide a broader platform for self-regulation. This idea, beyond having a longstanding and practical precedent, enjoys broad bipartisan support. The President's Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters, as part of its final report, unanimously called for a re-adoption of a voluntary common code, and last year both the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation strongly encouraging the industry to do the same. The Advisory Committee also recommended requiring licensees to make "enhanced disclosures" of their public interest programming and activities and thereby strengthen their accountability to the communities they serve. We believe this requirement would be a worthy complement to a new code and we would encourage the Commission to consider adopting it. In addition, we would ask you to review and rearticulate the Commission's indecency standard. In light of the increasingly salacious content now being aired, and the fact that the Commission has not to our knowledge issued an indecency ruling related to television in more than a decade, we think it would be constructive for the Commission to clarify the meaning of this standard at this time and thus help the public and the industry understand just where that line is drawn under the law. If the law is to have any meaning, it must be enforced, and if it is to be enforced, it must first be clearly understood. In making these requests, we do not want to paint with too broad a brush. Many broadcasters ably and dutifully serve their communities. And there is some brilliant programming on television today. Series such as "ER," "NYPD Blue," "Law & Order," "The Practice,"and the recently-canceled "Homicide," are among the finest written and acted shows in television history. Even when they touch on difficult or disturbing issues, they usually manage to put them into a responsible context, and in the end enlighten us. They have proven that broadcasters can air sophisticated, adult-oriented programming without violating the old NAB code's admonition against appealing to "prurient interests or morbid curiosity." And they have shown that they can do so while being sensitive to concerns about audience makeup – the networks have typically broadcast all five of the dramas mentioned above at 10 p.m., when fewer children are watching. The networks also deserve praise for broadcasting some new family-friendly programming in recent years, such as the much-heralded and much-watched "Touched By An Angel" on CBS and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" on ABC. Sadly, those select programs, along with much of what broadcasters honorably do in their communities, are being overshadowed and overwhelmed by the on-air abundance of gratuitous sex and violence. The threat posed by the accumulated impact of these messages would be consequential at any moment, but they are especially so now, when children are gunning down their classmates and teachers, and our country is plagued by an epidemic of teen pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. These are extremely complicated problems of public policy we in Congress and families and communities across America are grappling with, and we are convinced that we have little hope of solving them if the most powerful force in our culture continues to encourage the very behaviors that we are trying to deter. The evidence is so compelling, and the risks to our children so serious, that we are obliged to ask whether the broadcasters are fulfilling their public trust. Ultimately it is the responsibility of the Congress to make such an important decision and to implement any significant change in the public interest obligations of broadcasters in this area by statute. But we hope the Commission's inquiry will help begin that process, by gathering information and providing recommendations, and ideally engage the television industry in an honest dialogue about its legal and societal responsibilities. Thank you for your consideration on this critical matter; we look forward to your response.
Sincerely, John McCain
Chairman
Senate Commerce Committee
Joe Lieberman
Ranking Minority Member
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
Robert C. Byrd
Ranking Minority Member
Senate Appropriations Committee
Sam Brownback
Member
Senate Commerce Committee
cc: Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth
Commissioner Susan Ness
Commissioner Michael Powell
Commissioner Gloria Tristani
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