TV to U.S. govt: Hands off violent programs

By Rachelle Younglai

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. television programmers said on Thursday that the government had no business telling them what to air and criticized a Federal Communications Commission report saying Congress could regulate violent content.

CBS Corp., News Corp. and the cable industry said such regulation would be an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights and face high legal hurdles.

"A clear majority of Americans want to choose the programming they invite into their homes, and not cede that authority to the government," CBS said in a statement.

Late on Wednesday, the FCC released a report on violence on television, which found that exposure to violence in the media can increase aggressive behavior in children, at least for a short while.

The FCC does not have the authority to regulate violence on the airwaves, although it does have the power to regulate obscenity, sexual content and profanity.

Among the FCC's list of controversial recommendations was one that said Congress could develop a definition of excessively violent programming, though said such language needed to be narrowly tailored.

Another proposal would require cable and satellite companies to let U.S. consumers pay only for the channels they want instead of buying tiers of programming.

The industry reacted swiftly and angrily.

"You are dealing with clearly protected speech," said Jack Goodman, former general counsel for the National Association of Broadcasters. "There is no doubt that every court that has ever considered the issue (has found) descriptions of violence are fully protected speech."

"Unlike descriptions of explicit sex, etc., you have a lot of very very difficult definitional issues. What violence is the bad violence?"

Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said he is reviewing the FCC report and will include some of the recommendations in a bill. In 2005, Rockefeller tried to move similar legislation to protect children from violence, but it failed to advance.

Television violence is one of the biggest complaints heard from parents, an aide to Rockefeller said.

"They are just flipping through the channels and you can't help but see it and you can't flip fast enough or shield your kids' eyes fast enough," the aide said.

The FCC acknowledged that parental supervision was the first line of defense. But the report said existing tools and technology like the V-chip, which allows parents to set controls based on program ratings, were not sufficient.

Paul Gallant, analyst with Stanford Group in Washington, called the violence report a "very helpful" document for someone who wants to move anti-violence legislation.

Despite constitutional challenges of crafting a new law to control TV violence, there is likely to be broad support in Congress to do something, Gallant said. An increase in coarse and violent media content during the past 15 years may give any legislation political momentum, he said.