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Excerpts from V-Chip Legislation
In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Public Law 104-104, effective February 8, 1996, in Section 551, "Parental Choice in Television Programming," Congress enacted the following;
The following is the text of these provisions.
I - FINDINGS
(SEC. 551. PARENTAL CHOICE IN TELEVISION PROGRAMMING.)
(a) FINDINGS-
The Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Television influences children's perception of the values and behavior that are
common and acceptable in society.
(2) Television station operators, cable television system operators, and video
programmers should follow practices in connection with video programming that take into
consideration that television broadcast and cable programming has established a uniquely
pervasive presence in the lives of American children.
(3) The average American child is exposed to 25 hours of television each week and some
children are exposed to as much as 11 hours of television a day.
(4) Studies have shown that children exposed to violent video programming at a young
age have a higher tendency for violent and aggressive behavior later in life than children not so
exposed, and that children exposed to violent video programming are prone to assume that acts
of violence are acceptable behavior.
(5) Children in the United States are, on average, exposed to an estimated 8,000 murders
and 100,000 acts of violence on television by the time the child completes elementary school.
(6) Studies indicate that children are affected by the pervasiveness and casual treatment of
sexual material on television, eroding the ability of parents to develop responsible attitudes and
behavior in their children.
(7) Parents express grave concern over violent and sexual video programming and
strongly support technology that would give them greater control to block video programming in
the home that they consider harmful to their children.
(8) There is a compelling governmental interest in empowering parents to limit the
negative influences of video programming that is harmful to children.
(9) Providing parents with timely information about the nature of upcoming video
programming and with the technological tools that allow them easily to block violent, sexual, or
other programming that they believe harmful to their children is a nonintrusive and narrowly
tailored means of achieving that compelling governmental interest.
II - RATINGS
(SEC. 551. PARENTAL CHOICE IN TELEVISION PROGRAMMING.)
(b) ESTABLISHMENT OF TELEVISION RATING CODE-
- (1) AMENDMENT-
Section 303 (47 U.S.C. 303) is amended by adding at the end the following:
- "(w) Prescribe--
- (1) on the basis of recommendations from an advisory committee established by the
Commission in accordance with section 551(b)(2) of the Telecommunications Act of
1996,guidelines and recommended procedures for the identification and rating of video
programming that contains sexual, violent, or other indecent material about which parents should
be informed before it is displayed to children: Provided,That nothing in this paragraph shall be
construed to authorize any rating of video programming on the basis of its political or religious
content; and
- (2) with respect to any video programming that has been rated, and in consultation with
the television industry, rules requiring distributors of such video programming to transmit such
rating to permit parents to block the display of video programming that they have determined is
inappropriate for their children.
(2) ADVISORY COMMITTEE REQUIREMENTS- In establishing an advisory committee for purposes of the amendment made by paragraph (1) of this subsection, the Commission shall--
- (A) ensure that such committee is composed of parents, television broadcasters, television
programming producers, cable operators, appropriate public interest groups, and other interested
individuals from the private sector and is fairly balanced in terms of political affiliation, the
points of view represented, and the functions to be performed by the committee;
- (B) provide to the committee such staff and resources as may be necessary to permit it to
perform its functions efficiently and promptly; and
- (C) require the committee to submit a final report of its recommendations within one year
after the date of the appointment of the initial members.
(e) APPLICABILITY AND EFFECTIVE DATES-
(1) APPLICABILITY OF RATING PROVISION- The amendment made by
subsection (b) [ed. note: printed below] of this section shall take effect 1 year after the date of
enactment of this Act, but only if the Commission determines, in consultation with appropriate public interest groups and interested individuals from the private sector, that distributors of video programming have not, by such date--
- (A) established voluntary rules for rating video programming that contains sexual,
violent, or other indecent material about which parents should be informed before it is displayed
to children, and such rules are acceptable to the Commission; and
- (B) agreed voluntarily to broadcast signals that contain ratings of such programming.
III V-CHIP
(SEC. 551. PARENTAL CHOICE IN TELEVISION PROGRAMMING.)
(c) REQUIREMENT FOR MANUFACTURE OF TELEVISIONS THAT BLOCK PROGRAMS- Section 303 (47 U.S.C. 303), as amended by subsection (a), is further amended by adding at the end the following:
"(x) Require, in the case of an apparatus designed to receive television signals that are
shipped in interstate commerce or manufactured in the United States and that have a picture
screen 13 inches or greater in size (measured diagonally), that such apparatus be equipped with a
feature designed to enable viewers to block display of all programs with a common rating, except
as otherwise permitted by regulations pursuant to section 330(c)(4).".
(d) SHIPPING OF TELEVISIONS THAT BLOCK PROGRAMS- Section 330 (47 U.S.C. 330) is amended--
- (A) by redesignating subsection (c) as subsection (d); and
- (B) by adding after subsection (b) the following new subsection (c):
"(c) (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), no person shall ship in interstate commerce or manufacture in the United States any apparatus described in section 303(x) of this Act except in accordance with rules prescribed by the Commission pursuant to the authority granted by that section.
- (2) This subsection shall not apply to carriers transporting apparatus referred to in
paragraph (1) without trading in it.
(3) The rules prescribed by the Commission under this subsection shall provide for the
oversight by the Commission of the adoption of standards by industry for blocking technology.
Such rules shall require that all such apparatus be able to receive the rating signals which have
been transmitted by way of line 21 of the vertical blanking interval and which conform to the
signal and blocking specifications established by industry under the supervision of the
Commission.
(4) As new video technology is developed, the Commission shall take such action as the
Commission determines appropriate to ensure. If the Commission determines that an alternative
blocking technology exists that--
- (A) enables parents to block programming based on identifying programs without
ratings,
- (B) is available to consumers at a cost which is comparable to the cost of
technology that allows parents to block programming based on common ratings, and
- (C) will allow parents to block a broad range of programs on a multichannel
system as effectively and as easily as technology that allows parents to block programming based
on common ratings, the Commission shall amend the rules prescribed pursuant to section 303(x)
to require that the apparatus described in such section be equipped with either the blocking
technology described in such section or the alternative blocking technology described in this
paragraph."
(e) APPLICABILITY AND EFFECTIVE DATES-
(2) EFFECTIVE DATE OF MANUFACTURING PROVISION- In prescribing
regulations to implement the amendment made by subsection (c), the Federal Communications
Commission shall, after consultation with the television manufacturing industry, specify the
effective date for the applicability of the requirement to the apparatus covered by such
amendment, which date shall not be less than two years after the date of enactment of this Act.
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