Statement of Dr. Joanne Cantor
prepared for FCC Hearing, June 20, 1997**

Mr. Chairman and Commissioners of the FCC, I am pleased to appear before you to talk about the Television Industry's new rating system for program content. As a professor at the University of Wisconsin, I have been doing research on the psychological impact of television on children for more than 20 years, and I've been investigating television ratings intensively for three years, since beginning my research for the National Television Violence Study. I have gone into more detail about my research in the comments I filed earlier. Here I will summarize the main points:

How well do the new ratings permit parents to limit their children's exposure to video content they consider harmful? The answer, in a nutshell, is: these ratings are a failure and they fail on at least three counts.

First, parents do not want age-based ratings. Five independent national surveys, dating from last August through this past March, have shown that parents want ratings to tell them about the content of a program -- not the age of the child who should see it. Landslide preferences for content over age have been reported by researchers for Roper, Yankelovich, US News & World Report, and The New York Times, confirming similar findings from the national survey we conducted last fall in collaboration with the National PTA and IMHI (Institute for Mental Health Initiatives). Only one national poll has shown a preference for age over content, and that poll was commissioned by the Television Industry to coincide with the release of its new ratings system.

The Television Industry has made the claim that opposition to the new rating system exists only inside the Beltway. However, these consistent results of national surveys show that parents' preference for content information is both widespread and firmly held.

Second, these ratings do not tell parents what they need to know. Different parents feel differently about the impact of televised violence vs. sex vs. coarse language on their children. According to the new rating system, a "TV-PG" program may contain infrequent coarse language, limited violence, some suggestive sexual dialogue or situations. If the highly similar Motion Picture (MPAA) ratings are any indication, a rating such as "TV-PG" will give no notice of the type of content to expect in a program. In addition to analyses we have already reported on movies shown on television, we recently looked at all movies that the MPAA has rated over the past two years. Bowing to public pressure, the MPAA is now revealing the reasons why movies received their ratings. Our analysis showed that more than one-fourth (26%) of "PG"-rated movies contain coarse language only; another 26% have both violence and language; and another 18% have no sex, no violence, and no bad language, but only other controversial content, such as "thematic elements." These findings lead us to expect that the content of a program rated "TV-PG" will be totally unpredictable -- parents will not have a clue whether it contains something that may harm their child.

Third, age-based ratings entice children to restricted programs. In two years of research conducted for the National Television Violence Study, we found that the MPAA ratings of "PG-13" and "R" produced a "forbidden fruit" effect, making many children more eager to see a movie. What is worse, among the younger children studied, those who said they get into fights more often and those who like to watch TV the most were especially prone to this boomerang effect. In contrast, none of the content-based systems we tested enticed children to view more violent programs. These content-based systems included the popular HBO/Showtime violence codes as well as the phrase "contains some violent content." Similarly, in independent research conducted by Brad Bushman at Iowa State University, restrictive warning labels attracted both children and adults to movies, but information about violent content did not.

What this research says, in short, is that telling children they're too young to see a program, as implied by these age-based ratings, makes it more enticing than telling them it's violent. Although some will argue that the enticement factor will be moot when V-chips are in televisions and restricted programs are automatically blocked out, it must be recognized that V-chips will never be in all TV's. We must therefore be concerned about these side-effects of restrictive ratings even after the V-chip is implemented.

In summary, the Industry's new TV Parental Guidelines are the opposite of what parents overwhelmingly want; they fail to disclose the content information that parents need; and rather than discouraging children's viewing, they lure children to the programs we are trying to shield them from. On the other hand, content-based ratings are overwhelmingly preferred by parents; they specify different types of content so parents can make informed decisions; and they are less likely to produce the "forbidden-fruit" syndrome.

On a final note, whether or not a compromise or a new rating system is on the horizon, I would like to emphasize the need for ongoing independent research to determine whether the TV rating system is serving the needs of parents. If the past six months have taught us anything, it is that the interests of producers, who are in the business of making money through programming, are at odds with the interests of parents, who are trying to protect their children from harmful content. Both the vagueness of the rating system and the tendency to give programs lenient ratings arise from the industry's fear of losing advertising dollars if they state clearly what's in their programs.

For the past three years, I have been privileged to conduct research on television ratings with support both from the industry (the National Cable Television Association) and other sources, and I have been permitted to conduct this research without pressure to modify my findings to please one constituency or another. But as we have seen, research supported and controlled by the entity being investigated sometimes produces results that are at odds with the findings of independent researchers. For this reason I urge that any evaluation of the rating system be done in an independent, objective, and open fashion, which looks at how accurately the ratings are applied to programs and permits a fair comparison between the industry's system and other feasible approaches. With the fox guarding the henhouse, we should not look to the fox to provide a report on chicken security. Thank you. I will be happy to answer questions.

** Hearing cancelled as television industry (with the exception of NBC) agreed to modify the ratings by adding content letters on the day before the hearing was to occur.