WASHINGTON, D.C. – A broad cross-section of industries today announced an unprecedented coordinated effort to educate and inform American families about how they can monitor and supervise their children’s television consumption. The new campaign was announced by former Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) President and CEO Jack Valenti as he testified before the Commerce Committee of the U.S. Senate.
Valenti announced that the program is supported by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA); the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB); the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA); Viacom; Time Warner; the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) on behalf of cable programmers and operators; along with television broadcast networks ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC Universal; direct-to-home satellite providers DirecTV and EchoStar’s Dish Network; and the Ad Council.
“Never before has such a cooperative cross-industry venture been attempted. Cable programmers and operators, national TV networks, TV broadcast stations, makers of movies and TV programming, direct broadcast satellite delivery systems, manufacturers of consumer electronics – and the Ad Council – are all bound together in a tightly coordinated mission,” said Valenti. “We will conduct research and create informational and educational messages which in turn will be transported to parents throughout the country. All distributors of visual entertainment, news, and sporting events will exhibit these messages to homes in every neighborhood in the land.”
In his testimony, Valenti outlined a five-point program designed to reach parents nationwide through a number of avenues:
- Enlist the Ad Council to create, supervise and monitor messages to parents. “These messages will let parents know without question or doubt that they have the power, in their hands right now, to control every TV program that enters the home by whatever delivery method they have chosen,” Valenti stated.
- All the cooperating enterprises will offer air-time so these messages will be dispatched to all TV homes in the country. “This means that over and over again parents will receive a simple and straightforward message about how to monitor their children’s TV consumption,” Valenti stated. “The campaign will provide them with information on how to leverage easy-to-grasp tools such as the V-Chip, cable/satellite blocking mechanisms, and program content and ratings along with other tips to help manage the TV programming entering their homes.”
- The cross-industry campaign also will include educational and instructional materials made available to parents at retail stores, via information included with TV sets and during installation of pay-television services.
- All the cooperating entities will have readable logos at the start of every show, and coming out of every commercial break in programs aired. “Our goal here,” noted Valenti, “is to make sure the logos are large enough to be identified by parents, and their frequency of appearance is sufficient to keep parents informed.”
- Reach out to religious and parents’ advocacy groups with information they can re-distribute to their congregations or members to further inform and educate them about the power that parents have to control TV programming in their homes.
“The ‘uniqueness’ of this vast, national enterprise is confirmed by a very simple fact,” said Valenti. “The scale and sweep of this effort, its persistence, frequency, clarity and uniformity of message, are totally new and completely different than any other nation-wide mission yet attempted.”
Valenti also noted that the campaign meets parents’ overwhelming desire for a free-market solution to address inappropriate television programming.
“Polls show that some 70 to 80 percent of parents believe there are programs on TV unsuitable for children,” Valenti testified. “The same percentage also report they do not want government to step in and fix this problem. From these facts about the public’s revealed opinion, we present a common sense plan that will convey to American parents that they have, right now, all the weaponry they need to control all the TV programming that enters their home. We are pleased to offer this proposal to the Committee for its consideration.”
Beginning with the “go ahead” to the Ad Council, the campaign is expected to run for approximately 18 months at an estimated cost to the cooperating organizations of between $250 and $300 million, including Ad Council ad development and donated air-time.
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