Guest that was created almost 20 years ago, it went along with the vchip that allows participants to block inappropriate content for their children. What we did, we looked to see the every cat i of the efficacy of the program itself, is it accurately warning parents about ageinappropriate material . Our findings were that its not. Is the systemically, we think, broken, in need of repair. We found there is a blurring between tv14 and tvpg. There is, actually, no show on broadcast television, no series on broadcast television today that is rated appropriate for anything older than children. Tv14 is the oldest rating. Even the most explicit content on prime time broadcast tv is rated as appropriate for children to watch. We learned that the tv networks themselves rate the shows, and weve learned that the tv advertisers who pay the bills for the networks rely on the ratings just like parents do. And so theres a conflict of interest in terms of rating content accurately. A lot of advertisers wont sponsor mature audience only content, therefore, the tv networks dont rate anything as appropriate for mature audiences, and the system is incapable of doing as it was intended. Host so youre acing that the ratings saying that the networks that the ratings give their the ratings that the networks give their shows are inaccurate . Guest theyre inconsistent. And theres no transparency for parents to understand what those ratings mean. If theyre concerned about the accuracy of a ratings system, who are they cocomplain to . Actually, theres an Oversight Board comprised of the same executives who rate the programs wrong to begin with. That doesnt look like oversight to me. Host well, lets bring David Shepardson into this conversation, hes a reporter with thomson reuters, and he covers these matters. You mentioned there hasnt been a grated program in prime time since 2008 when, i think, the price is right was on. Is that a reflection of where tv is today, or does it suggest that the networks are just not interested in having that type of programming . Guest i think the latter. Whats interesting, were now, like you said, almost a decade now since we had the last regularlyscheduled series rated g. In the last few week, we have a new one. Its called little big shots. Its on nbc, and it is winning its time slot. It shows there still is a market for familyfriendly as long as its well produced and well, you know, good production value. There is a huge market more this. I think that the networks tend to, i spent 15 years myself at nbc. I dont know anybody who intentionally tries to hurt children or tries to just push the envelope or envelope pushing sake, but theyre a lemming mental the city. And when they see something thats out there thats successful, they try to make it more edgy, more provocative, and theyve gotten away from broadcasting to the word, broad, a broad market. And, unfortunately, tvg has pretty much become a dinosaur except for, fortunately, this one show recently. Is that a reflection of the fact that with cable, you know, hbo, showtime, so on, that consumers have so many options already for more explicit shows, the networks felt pressure to maybe compete more directly with the cable shows . Guest oh, its ironic that the broadcast networks feel a need to compete with the Cable Network that the broadcast networks own. [laughter] its the consolidation of media ownership today. You have five or Six Companies that open not only the broadcast networks, but also most of the mostwatched Cable Networks. But the reality is youre still using public airwaves. Its supposed to be a broad, a broadly broad audience. Broadcasting. So, certainly, they feel a pressure to compete to try to find a way to get an audience. I think they believe that the best way to get a bigger audience for broadcast is to be more like cable. Our belief is the more youre like cable, youre going to yet a Cable Network rating. Host mr. Winter, what are the restrictions on the networks when it comes to prime time or at any time of their programming . Guest in terms of the content . Host sure. Guest there is still the fccs broadcast indecency law that has been on the books now for decades, and as recently host socalled seven words . Guest that was the original case, the George Carlin seven dirty words case which was the tv networks attempted to throw out as unconstitutional, the broadcast indecency enforcement, a few years ago. And the Supreme Court chose not to throw out that statute, and its still good law, and it was enforced as recently as a year ago when a tv station in roanoke, virginia, aired a hard core pornography clip, they said by accident, but it did air on the public airwaves at times when children are in the viewing audience. Its, to our knowledge, still good law and still being enforced. Host again, what exactly are the restrictions . Does it begin at a certain hoursome. Guest yes. Host is it nudity . Is it violence . Guest it is content that describes in patently offensive terms Sexual Violence is not part of the broadcast indecency law. There are some that would argue that the harm that comes to children from watching violent media is even greater than the sexuallyexplicit content. The research weve seen is that both have an impact on children, but right now the law only effects sexual or excra story content only between 6 a. M. And 10 p. M. So after 10 p. M. The broadcasters are free to air whatever they choose as long as its not legally obscene. What about the argument from the broadcasters that, you know, parents have the vchip, and they have a lot of control over what their children watch . Isnt that enough to prevent kids from watching things they shouldnt be watching . Guest its one very important resource. We dont think its the sum total of all the remedy that should be out there. Broadcast indecency enforcement is important. At certain times of the day, if you want to air stuff that would be legally indecent, wait until 10 00, and buck do so without any consequence and you can do so without any consequence. But the argument about the vchip shoally as solely as a solution is flawed because it requires the content Rating System to be accurate in order to work. If, you know, i would we knew there was a problem, and i know that the audience here watching this, there probably arent too many children in the audience, so if i could use a little bit of a spirited language, we knew there was a problem when we saw a show that was rated as appropriate for children with a sexual intercourse scene on cable, rated as appropriate for children, and during the the scene the woman said to the man, and stick your finger in my ass, rated as appropriate for children. I dont think that is appropriate for children. We actually took it to the network, we took it to the tv oversight monitoring board which is this board here in washington thats supposed to make sure the system is doing its job, and they shrugged. They said, well, its all subjective. The reason you have oversight is to try to make things as objective as you possibly can. If the ratings system is going to be subjective based upon each network, if each network is going to implement a different age rating and theyre going to rate it differently, how can a vchip do its job . It cant. And along with that, what about the argument that parents have even more control because so many parents are using an ipad or dvr to, basically, have much more control over what their kids watch because theyre picking out the shows, theyre recording them as opposed to just letting them turn on a its. Guest time shifting is a huge issue as it relates to the Parents Council and trying to serve the public. What used to be on was on a certain time of day, and then it was done. Now you can record it and play it back with the touch of a control. That is certainly a challenge. As it relates to the content on other devices and, you know, my friends in hollywood at the tv networks know even greater than i do the consequence to their business from people going to streaming, the cord cutters and so forth. It is probably the hardest point in time for a parent to be a parent when it comes to the media choices for their children right now. There is so much out there thats way more explicit than theyll see on television. Thats why its so important for the hardware and Software Manufacturers to provide gating tools, parental control devices on these systems so that there can be at least some modicum of security for their children. Its impossible to get all of it, but lets i think its important for us to try. Host tim winter, what else besides the vchip, in your view, could work, could help parents . Guest weve talked to a number of academicians in the United States who are experts in the field of impact of media on children and content ratings. They have recommended a number of different remedies, one of which is i dont personally advocate it because i dont know enough about it yet, but one thats really interesting, apparently the dutch government has a system whereby every single piece of media content whether its Motion Pictures, television, video games, music is subject to one single Rating System that parents can understand and adopt. Its not one for movies, one for tv, one for music and one for video games. I think consistency would be very, very helpful. This oversight is also very concerning to me. What does an Oversight Board look like . It shouldnt be just the industry executives running the asylum. Host well, where does the fcc fall into this oversight . Guest the fcc has the authority to accept or reject in total the report and order that was created 20 years ago that created the vchip, content ratings system and the oversight monitoring board. But there is no public accountability for this oversight monitoring board. I think the fcc could adopt some changes that bring, shed some light, that would allow not just the industry executives to determine whats appropriate or not, but bring more voices from the outside, academicians, experts, child psychology experts, experts in the scientific field who can see whats harmful, whats not and provide their input. Absent a system that, absent the oversight that is required to really look and see is the system truly working, it has to be independent, and right now its not. What about again, back to the cable issue. The argument theres so many channels on, you know, on the box now for kids. I mean, theres, you know, pbs kids, nickelodeon, many, many good options of clearly familyrated programming. Given that so many consumers can pick those shows for their kids, why is it necessary sort of on the broadcast networks to have those type of shows . And given societal trends, setting a aside the issue of whether shows are properly rated, are the networks going to return to, you know, little house on the prairie, murder, she wrote, more geared to the family when everybody has their own screen to watch . Guest yep. Having so many media choices is a wonderful thing. As a parent myself, you know, it gives us an infinite number of possibilities. Well, not infinite, but certainly a large number of possibilities to choose from. But that doesnt mean that everything necessarily is familyfriendly. We saw content on nickelodeon where it was a cartoon that included stripper poles. And this is prime time marketed to children on nickelodeon. Stripper poles . Its so its not always clean just because its on nickelodeon. The tv content Rating System is supposed to apply to every single Television Network whether its cable or broadcast. Its one standard, it should be one standard, so lets make it work. The other thing that we advocate for is cable un3wu7bding. Let consumers pick and choose which networks they want to pay for ratherren than being forced to pay for 100, 200, 500. Theres been some argument wouldnt that be cheaper, more expensive . We think anytime the consumer marketplace can choose for itself what products they want to purchase, prices tend to go down. If you go to the newsstand, you dont have to buy the Washington Times if you want the washington post, and we think it should be the same way on cable x that would also provide a means by which parents can filter out stuff they dont want coming into their home. Host why do you think that all the grated programs are off the air at this point or not being aired on the broadcast networks . Guest having spent a big port of my portion of my career working for the tv networks and in hollywood, there is a tremendous, theres a sense of lemming mentality. What does it host money . Guest if it were money, i think youd see more familyfriendly. I think its more of an egodriven thing on the production level. Every producer in hollywood wants to be the cool person at the party. They want to be cool in their peer group. And youre cool in your peer group not by producing little big shots. Youre cool by producing game of thrones or, you know, something that is explicit and violent, pushing the envelope, dark, troubled, the antihero, you know, crime serial we see so much of now. And there is a herd mentality. Nobody ever gets hired in hollywood for taking whats successful and trying to copy it. You get fired for trying to be bold and innovative and going in a different direction, and it doesnt work. So there is a pressure, i think, on the programming executives and on the producers to keep producing the edgier stuff. Host what was your role at nbc and mgm . Guest finance business development. So i got to see, you know, i would do the financial books. And what i learned at nbc was it didnt matter really if truly how many people watched or how many emmy awards you won. What mattered is advertising dollars. And thats why the Parents Television council is so active reaching out to the sponsors of television programming. What weve learned in years past and even in current months is if you can talk to the sponsors about what their media dollars underwrite and if they say theyre a familyfriendly advertiser, company, they dont want to be sponsoring the explicit stuff. And so if we can convince the advertisers to steer their dollars away from the more explicit stuff that they dont want to associate their brand with, it either trickles down to some of the more explicit stuff being edited out or being p canceled. Parents voting with their eyeballs . I know you mentioned the one grated show, but do you think parents are demanding this type of programming . Guest i think it was game of thrones a couple years ago, was it oh, no, maybe it was breaking bad. There was an episode which was the water cooler talk program around the country, so the media reports went. Actually, the finale of breaking bad didnt quite top another show which was on the air which was a repeat of i love lucy from 50 years ago. So the reality of the matter is this stuff still has a marketplace if its good quality. So many people in hollywood think of familyfriendly as hold your nose, its not really high production value. If you produce it well, if its high production value and well written, well acted, well directed, people will turn out in throngs to watch something positive. Think about the most highly rated events on live television, these broadway show, you know, the sound of music a couple years ago, there was another one just recently, was it the wiz . Guest yeah. Guest so it shows theres a huge audience for this, and there are very i few options especially on broadcast. But is there a disconnect . Hollywood has made many, many movies for kids. Seems like theres been dozens and dozens of movies for kids, but yet why does that sort of focus on Family Entertainment at the Movie Theater . Maybe not also on the small screen. Guest there is, i believe, a similar mentality on the production and distribution side. The grated movies, the pgrated movie, the disney pixar movies, blockbuster after blockbuster. When you look at what are the highest rated, the highest Box Office Motion pictures, almost every year there will be a superhero movie or two where theres intense action, sometimes violence, but year after year its the movies that are really well produced that the whole family can enjoy together that make the most money. Pg13 movies pg movies make a lot more money than the rrated movies, but theres many more r rrated movies produced. Why is that . Well, i think the folks in town, thats what they like to produce. Host tim winter, there are several different ratings that are available for broadcasters, and this your study, again, is focused just on the broadcast networks, correct . Guest yes, thats correct. Host tvg, pg, ma, 14. Do you think that those need to be updated, those actual ratings . I know youve talked about having one standard for them, but are there enough ratings . Do they need more . Do they need fewer . Guest great question. I think that the ratings, if they were more clearly defined, if they were more transparent, if they were more easily understood, i think the categories they have are fine. You know, the analogy were using with our research report, most of us have gone into a supermarket to buy something. We grab a box, we look at the back to see what the ingredients are. How much fat content, what are the calories, what are the ingredients . Because were going to ingest these things. We rely on that accuracy on the back of that box s and so, too, should we will relying on the accuracy of a ratings system. Weve seen academic researching that shows what the content is what parents want. Let them make the decision whether its appropriate for their children, using an around train 13, 14,pg may have some complications to it. Certainly, there could be improvements. And what were hoping is, what wed love to see is a hearing in congress, at the fcc, bring in the experts and lets see how 20 years of this system how effective its been. Lets see if its working, if its not working, and lets bring in independent commentators to the table to see if theres room for improvement. Host who wrote the report . Guest dr. Gildameister, ph. D. We have digital recording devices that record all the broadcast Networks Every night, a number of Cable Networks. Analysts come in the next morning and will watch what aired last night. People think, oh, youre watching television for a job, what fun. Its not. Youre locking every in logging every instance of profanity, drug use, sexual activity, youre logging all this into a database. We use that on our web site so parents can make more informed choices for themselves to see whats on, what content am i likely to see. The Public Education aspect is why were in business. Its the biggest expense line we have. Host David Shepardson. Do you think they should be more prescriptive in terms of saying what exactly can and cannot be shown for a ma or 14 rating . Guest its an interesting question, and i really like the way you phrased it. To suggest what can or cant be shown is in the United States of america a toxic sentence. No one wants to be censorious. No one. We try to have for certain content a time and a place where you can on certain venues, public airwaves, you know, you cant. Cable, you can. Over the internet, you can. So you dont want to talk about what can or cant be done. But there has to be, i think, greater attention. The broadcasters are using the public airwaves valued by some at as much as half a trillion dollars worth of public value. Theyre using those airwaves for free. And there are very few restrictions, but theyre supposed to serve the Public Interest. The Public Interest is what theyre supposed to use those broadcast airwaves for. Entertainment certainly serves the Public Interest. One of the stipulations is dont be indecent before 10 00 at night. So if youre going to not be indecent, at least rate the content accurately. Host well, tim winter, the networks have not really gotten indecent past 10 p. M. , have they . Guest certainly. Certainly, they have. And there have been instances, i mean, howard stern was on the television, with his radio show for a number of years later at night. Hes certainly allowed to do that after 10 00 at night on the public airwaves. We see episodes of saturday night live that increasingly push the content envelope. So they certainly arent obscene. They know not to be obscene, but the reality is they have tremendous freedom to do almost anything they could possibly want in terms of content after 10. They do still face the pressure of the advertisers. Some advertisers are uncomfortable sponsoring certain types of material. Weve seen Cable Network shows, some that were rated ma on Cable Networks, make it to late night broadcast television. Sometimes theyre edited out for a little bit of the most extreme stuff. Again, mostly because of the advertiser pressure, not because of f, fcc pressure. But do you well, how much do you think advertisers care about, you know, and are they listening to parents . How active do you think parents are or people many general in urging advertisers not to support shows that are more graphic . Guest we have varying degrees of relationships with about 300 different corporate advertisers. I would say 75100 i would say we have very solid relationships. If i call, they pick up the phone, they want to have a dialogue. They dont always agree with us, but theyre eager to hear our point of view. Most of these ceos are family people, and they dont want to support this type of stuff. But you also at a corporate sponsor level, you hire an ad agency. The ad agency looks at gross rating points, whats the demographic, and they find a gross rating point demographic, and they buy the show without looking to see what the content is of that show. Would toyota buy, on a tv show that then makes fun of toyota or talks about how bad their product is . No. At some level, they are concerned about the content, but they abdicate their authority to the ad agency. They get money, they have to spend it x thats how they get their commission. The agency isnt so concerned about aligning a corporate brand with content on television. The corporation is. And frequently, the corporation doesnt even know what theyre buying. Well go to shareholder meetings of publiclytraded corporations and ask the ceo eyeball to eyeball in front of the shareholders, heres what you sponsored. Is this what you stand for . Almost 100 of the time, well, we didnt know that was the case. And almost 100 of the time they look into it, and they will reconsider that media buy decision. There are some that dont care. Famously, lahr d. C. And carl hardees and carls jr. Restaurant, taco bell seem very interested to reach young males even if it means sponsoring very explicit content. But those are very few and far between. Most corporations are responsible, they want to be careful. They dont want to align their brand and theres research that shows that they shouldnt align their brand with explicit material that viewers, viewers of explicit Television Shows dont remember the sponsors name being advertised. Theres Scientific Research that shows that. Something happens in the brain where youre excited about what youre seeing, the commercial wreak comes break comes, and you dont remember whats advertised. So its Good Business for the sponsors to sponsor familyfriendly programming. Host tim winter, many shows feature gay characters today. Modern family has a gay family. Is that something you rate as well . Guest no. Host just sex and violence . Guest yeah. We dont distinguish sexual behavior by gender. The research weve seen is that its the sexual behavior that is, has an impact on children. The gender is not of concern to us. Host lets go to the accountability that youve talked about that this is a closed system, that the people who are creating the ratings are judging the ratings as well. Guest yes. Host who would you like how would you like to see that rejiggered . Guest right now you have a 24member body. Again, the fcc report and order that created this oversight monitoring board, 24 individuals. A chairman who rotates between the cable lobby, the broadcast lobby and the Motion Picture lobby. So the chairman of the npaa rotate as chair. There are 18 industry executives, and there are supposed to be 5 Public Interest individuals. To our knowledge and ive only been to one meeting, but the conversations ive had, all those five arent filled, and who gets to approve who those five individuals are . Well, lets see, Television Industry executive who gets to appoint which Public Interest advocates are on the board. It should be more even. There should be more scientists involved, more psychologists, clinical psychologists, child psychologists who are aware of the impact of media on children. And there should be some consequence if there is continued misrating. If the industry executive who misrates things sits on the board and says theres no problem here, please move along, there can be no accountability. Theres no consequence for what i think is i dont know if its actually intentional, but it sure is, maybe its just de facto. Its misleading. Its fraudulent. What about the argument that this more aggressive enforcement of the ratings would be inhibiting the creative freedom of people in hollywood and that, you know, there would be, you know, people authors would be forced or creators would be forced to move shows to cable or Motion Pictures and that . The overall, the shows on tv would become, you know, not as edgy or whatever you want to say as they are today . Diswhrk. Guest harming the Creative Community . Right. Guest you can produce whatever you want to produce, but lets rate it accurately. And, you know, beyond Just Television weve seen evidence of this in Motion Pictures as well. There was a study by the an nonburg school, i think it was about two years ago, that showed theres actually more gun violence on pg13 movies than rrated movies. And theres a couple reasons for that. One is that the networks excuse me, the studios make more money on pg13 than they do on r, so they will find any way to get the gun violence in there. And the second is there is a desensitization of the ratings, those who rate the content themselves. Theres a ratings creep. Michael medved said a couple years ago, i thought it was an interesting comment, he said pg13 should really be called r13 because its more r than it is pg. And pg13 was created because there was a gap between pg and r, there was a lot of wiggle room. Theres still wiggle room. How many fwords can you use in pg13 . The answer should be zero, but its two or three, but not anything more than that. As a parent, you know, either the use of that word is, you know, its a red line, yes or no. Be your family allows that word to be spoken. Its not two or three times is okay and four is bad. So the ratings creep is something that is certainly happening in Motion Pictures. I think its also happening on television. Host tim winters the president of the Parents Television council which has put out a new report protecting children or protecting hollywood. Parents tv. Org, you can see the report yourself, David Shepardson is with thomson reuters. Thank you, gentlemen. Guest thank you. Thanks. In. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies and brought to you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. Today voice of america director Amanda Bennett delivers keynote remarks at a Leadership Forum hosted by the usc an nonburg center. There is her first public appearance since being sworn in. Live coverage at 12 10 p. M. Eastern here on cspan2. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Sarah Saldana testified before the House Oversight and government reform committee. Members questioned her about why those convicted of violent offenses were released back into the u. S. Rather than deported to their country of origin. This portion of the hearing is almost three hours. The committee will come to order, and without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. Preparing for this hearing has, im telling you, its hard to keep your cool in preparing for this meeting. And let me tell you the heart of why were here today. Immigration Customs Enforcement, i have met with the men and women who work there, the wonderful, hard working, dedicated people who do a hard and difficult job