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Although we examined all varieties of television programming, this is primarily an intensive look at broadcast network television. Today's video signals come not only over the air but also through cable, satellites, home video cassettes and even through video game cartridges. Even though there are a number of different sources, each with different rules and obligations under the law, most people still think of anything they watch on the set as "television." Few viewers make distinctions between network and syndicated programming, or even, in many cases between broadcast and cable programming. Even fewer make distinctions between programming supplied by the broadcast networks or by their local affiliates. We approach this study aware of the fact that to most of the world it is all just "television." Therefore, although this is primarily a broadcast network study, we have taken a look at all television sources including the following:
We did not examine video sources such as CD-ROMs which play on a home computer instead of a television set. Relatively new services, such as Direct Broadcast Satellite (DirecTV and USSB), use revolutionary delivery systems, but their content replicates that of broadcast and cable. Should that change, we will examine their programming in subsequent years.
The primary purpose of the study is to examine the content of broadcast network television during the hours of prime time and Saturday morning. We reserved the right to extend these boundaries when necessary and, in many cases, we did so. Even though the audience share of network television has gone from a high of 90% in the mid-1970s to a more modest 60% in 1995 (and this is now divided among four networks instead of three), network television is still viewed by the largest number of people. It is the form that produces the most original programming (with the highest budgets) and it is still the program source most people watch and talk about the next day. When Congress and most of the nation think about television, they are thinking about broadcast network television. Therefore, the monitoring study placed its heaviest emphasis on the four broadcast networks. As noted above, the cable television industry has concurrently contracted with MediaScope to study cable television, a project for which we did not submit a proposal.
The project examined every television program scheduled in the hours of prime time and Saturday morning except those shows produced by the networks' news divisions. Those times were as follows:
Every regularly scheduled show was monitored at least four times. If, after four examinations, no issues of concern about violence were raised, the show was no longer regularly monitored, although we continued to record every episode of the show. Mid-season shows no longer regularly monitored were monitored one additional time to look for changes in theme and content. We reserved the right to continue to monitor any show at any time for any reason and in several instances we did so. Shows that ran fewer than four times were examined each time they aired. Every television movie, mini-series, theatrical film and special for the 1994-1995 television season was examined. We felt that we could generalize about some of the series after a minimum of four airings, but all one-time-only programming had to be monitored because we could not make generalizations about such programming. Television series that did raise issues of violence were monitored more than four times. We continued examining such series until we felt we could generalize about their content. Some shows were monitored for the entire season. The season was defined as running from the premier of a new episode in September or October 1994 through the end of the May 1995 sweeps. (A complete list of all the programming we examined and the number of times it passed through our system is found in the appendix).
The economics of the syndication market dictate that a show cannot be successfully syndicated unless it is bought for the second biggest American market, Los Angeles. Therefore, we concluded that examining all three Los Angeles independent VHF stations would yield a fairly complete picture of syndicated programming specifically and independent television programming generally. A randomly drawn two-week sample of programming on television stations KTLA(5), KCAL(9) and KCOP(13) was monitored, examining prime time and Saturday morning hours as we did with the broadcast networks.
In January of 1995, both WB (Warner Bros.) Network and UPN (United Paramount Network) began airing original programs. They intended to compete for the niche of youth-oriented programming that Fox has been so successfully targeting. UPN aired on Monday and Tuesday nights in Los Angeles on KCOP. WB aired on Wednesday nights on KTLA. When KTLA and KCOP were airing WB and UPN programs, we treated them exactly like the other four commercial broadcast networks and examined their programming at least four times. For those periods when these stations did not air original network programming, we treated them like other independent stations, monitoring a sample two-week period.
Public television station KCET(28) was monitored for a randomly selected two-week period during prime time and Saturday morning hours.
Eight cable channels (three pay and five basic) were monitored for randomly selected two-week periods during the hours of prime time and Saturday morning. The channels monitored and the reasons for their selection were as follows:
The eight cable networks monitored were carefully chosen as the ones most closely resembling the broadcast networks or because of their youth appeal. There was little reason to include stations not relevant to the study of television violence, such as C-SPAN, The Weather Channel and The Nashville Network, or other cable channels not significantly different from those above.
Although home video replicates theatrical content in most instances (occasionally extra scenes are added), the VCR is attached to a television set and therefore is part of the world of television. We examined the top ten home video rental titles as listed by Billboard magazine each quarter. We began with the August 1994 list and continued with the lists of November 1994, and February and May 1995. A complete list of the 40 films is in the appendix. In several instances a film such as Jurassic Park was both a top ten home video (in 1994) and aired on broadcast television (in 1995). In those instances it was monitored in both forms.
Our examination was limited to the video games that play on the television set and therefore can also be construed as a form of television. The two most popular companies producing these cartridge video games are Sega and Nintendo. Other game formats requiring computers, CD- ROMs, virtual reality goggles or other special, non-television paraphernalia were not examined. We monitored the top five video games of the year as listed by the NPD Group. In most instances those games were available in both Sega and Nintendo formats.
On our own we added programs in the prime time access rule period (PTAR) and the fringe period from late afternoon until prime time. In May, 1994 the Center for Communication Policy conducted a survey of leaders of the entertainment industry with U.S. News & World Report (attached in the appendix). When asked to name the most violent programs then on television, many identified shows in the access or fringe periods such as Hard Copy, A Current Affair or Real Stories of the Highway Patrol. To see if these charges had merit, we added a wide sampling of earlier time-period shows to the monitoring.
Programming after 11:00 p.m. at night was not monitored because of the small number of children in the audience and the fact that most original, late-night programming, such as The Tonight Show and Late Night, was extremely unlikely to raise any issues of violence. Although the independent stations do run theatrical films and made-for-television movies in those periods, this content was accounted for through prime time monitoring on the broadcast and cable networks.
We have little doubt that television talk shows would top most Americans' list of problematic programming in 1995. While these shows might raise important questions of taste and judgment, rarely do they raise issues of violence important enough to justify their monitoring on the scale of other programming. Occasionally, there is pushing or shoving on these programs (it is unclear whether the producers provoke these altercations or not), and at least one murder was linked to a talk show. But for the most part, violence is not depicted on these shows. The issues raised by and associated with television talk shows deserve a clear and intensive examination, but not in a report on television violence.
The agreement between Sen. Simon and the networks precluded the monitoring of television news. While we understand and respect the First Amendment rights of journalists, we also know that this is the programming which many people feel contains some of the worst violence on television. The May 1994 UCLA-U.S. News & World Report survey clearly demonstrated that many people feel news, especially local news, is a problem. We did everything we could to treat the definition of news as narrowly as possible. We did monitor the television tabloid programs.
Each night, many local news programs lead with a steady diet of reports on murder, rape and mayhem. During the entire period of the monitoring, the O.J. Simpson case appeared daily on television. One problem with monitoring television news is that violent stories such as the Rodney King beating or war in Bosnia might be construed as problematic programming. Some recent studies on television violence have criticized stations for airing reports on Rwanda or other strife around the world. This is a dangerous precedent. To serve as an important source of news and information, broadcasters must be free to report these stories, no matter how unpleasant they are for the audience. But broadcasters should guard against gratuitous images shown merely because they exist as good tape. Many critics do feel that "if it bleeds, it leads." It is our judgment that network news (ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN) rarely panders to those tendencies. In far too many instances local news and syndicated tabloid shows do. We believe a comprehensive study of local news across the country--big markets and small, network owned and operated stations, affiliates and independent stations--should be conducted in the near future.
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