Conferences Won’t End TV Carnage

The killing fields.

That’s what U.S. television continues to be in the 1990s, and only the truest of believers would expect significant or lasting change under voluntary guidelines on violence in programming that the industry is supposed to be developing under pressure from Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.).

The Simon-sponsored 1990 Television Improvement Act suspends antitrust laws until December to allow the networks to work together to curb the violence on their airwaves. ABC, CBS and NBC vowed in December to draft a uniform set of guidelines on depictions of violence. Fox and the non-network syndication crowd have yet to be heard from on this, but the National Cable Television Assn. signed on to the plan last week after, much to its chagrin, its own study found that the violence level on programs originated for cable is “about the same” as that on the broadcast networks.

“About the same” is the equivalent of “soaring.”

“A Murderous Affair: The Carolyn Warmus Story,” ABC, Sept. 13; “Terror on Track 9,” CBS, Sept. 20; “With a Vengeance,” CBS, Sept. 22; “Obsessed,” ABC, Sept. 27, “Child of Rage,” CBS, Sept. 29; “Danger of Love,” CBS, Oct. 4; “Gun Crazy,” Showtime, Oct. 17; “In the Line of Duty: Street War,” NBC, Oct. 25.

Setting content aside for the moment, the above are a sampling of the made-for-TV movies--appearing on this season’s network schedules from Sept. 13 to March 2--whose titles alone project mayhem. You get a little twinge just reading them.

The complete list, totaling a whopping 33 movies, does not include action or “reality” series like “Cops” that frequently have violent themes. Nor does it include movies whose titles do not convey their violent content, or theatrical films airing on independent stations or cable.

In fact, at least five dozen of the movies available this week to Los Angeles viewers, either on regular TV or cable, have plots centering on murder.

Initial episodes of NBC’s admirable new cop series “Homicide” are role models for producers interested in doing crime stories without showing crime being committed. Yet even when the violence is not shown, or depicted only in moderation, programs with violent themes still feed our sense of unease. That’s especially so when the sensational crime movies now so prevalent in prime time earn added visibility when they inevitably become the subjects of talk, tabloid and news programs.

As long as viewers tune in--as they did in enormous numbers to watch the three Amy Fisher movies--the industry will not be highly motivated to give up its golden goose.

“Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, the Last Chapter,” CBS, Nov. 1; “Mortal Sins,” USA, Nov. 4; “Willing to Kill: The Texas Cheerleader Story,” ABC, Nov. 8; “Fatal Memories,” NBC, Nov. 9; “Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story,” CBS, Nov. 17; “Nightmare in the Daylight,” CBS, Nov. 22; “Deadly Matrimony,” NBC, Nov. 22; “Revenge on the Highway,” NBC, Dec. 6.

In addition to promising in a joint letter to Simon to “limit the depiction of violence in entertainment programs,” ABC, CBS and NBC said they would schedule a spring conference to discuss the issue. The National Cable Television Assn. has said it also would take part, and that it will urge every cable network to develop its own written “internal standards” concerning violence by the end of 1993. Just where these individual standards would intersect with a uniform code remains to be seen.

In their letter to Simon, the Big Three networks set out some broad parameters, saying uniform guidelines should ban gratuitous and glamorized violence and excessive gore and suffering. Yet who, but each network itself, would apply and interpret the guidelines? Who would decide what is gratuitous, what is glamorized, what is excessive?

If the industry drafts tough guidelines, they’ll be virtually unenforceable. If the industry drafts guidelines that are soft or vague, the issue will come boomeranging back at Simon, who has long been a critic of the amount of violence on TV. In that event, one would hope that, given his strong record as a free-speech advocate, he would not push for government regulation of TV violence or other TV content. That cure--government meddling in the creative process--would be worse than the cancer.

“A Killer Among Friends,” CBS, Dec. 8; “Love Can Be Murder,” NBC, Dec. 14; “Through the Eyes of a Killer,” CBS, Dec. 15; “Baby Snatcher,” CBS, Dec. 29; “Dead Before Dawn,” ABC, Jan. 10; “Relentless: Mind of a Killer,” NBC, Jan. 11; “Better Off Dead,” Lifetime, Jan. 12; “Survive the Night,” USA, Jan. 13; “Hit List,” Showtime, Jan. 17; “Killer Rules,” NBC, Jan. 24; “Death Train,” USA, Jan. 26.

Whatever the outcome of the TV violence debate, it will resonate beyond U.S. borders.

That is the reason for a visit to Los Angeles by Keith Spicer, chairman of the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC), Canada’s equivalent of this nation’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

U.S. television is widely available in Canada, where Spicer says 82% of the households are wired for cable (giving them access to the airwaves south of the border) and where regulations permit up to 50% of regular broadcast TV to originate outside the country.

Say hello to the United States. Say hello to the slasher movie of the week.

So Spicer is in Los Angeles, picking the brains of television and studio executives about programming trends and whether the violence barometer is going down or staying put. So far, he’s found opinion about split.

Spicer said that there’s a “great public outrage” over TV violence in Canada. “We’re not concerned with Canadian production because it’s pretty nonviolent,” he said. “What we’re concerned about is--well, I have to say it--American TV.”

“Kiss of a Killer,” ABC, tonight; “Poisoned by Love: The Kern County Murders,” CBS, Tuesday; “I Can Make You Love Me: The Stalking of Laura Black,” Feb. 9; “A Twist of the Knife,” CBS, Feb. 13; “Bloodlines: Murder in the Family,” NBC, March 2.

Nothing can be done about the gratuitously violent U.S. programming available to Canadians via cable. Instead, it’s the Canadians who are buying such programs for regular broadcast TV who are being targeted, Spicer said.

Just as in the United States, Spicer said, many Canadians are lobbying their TV industry to change its ways in lieu of legislation. That matter came to a head in November when the 13-year-old sister of an 11-year-old murder victim--whose family blamed her murder on the influence of TV--presented Prime Minister Brian Mulroney with a petition against TV violence bearing 1.3 million signatures. Mulroney vowed that if the industry did not shape up, he’d consider legislation to force it to do so.

Well, politicians sometimes say things for effect. “We’re doing our damnedest to avoid laws and regulations, because that is an extreme solution no one feels comfortable about,” Spicer said. “What we have been doing for the last seven months is to try to find a civilized balance between creative freedom and responsibility to children. This is not a freedom-of-speech issue. It’s a child-protection issue.”

Later this month, Toronto will host a conference of representatives of Canadian TV and national parents’ and teachers’ groups for a discussion of ways to reform the medium without trampling on basic freedoms.

“The Canadian public wants much less violence on television,” Spicer said. In poll after poll, the U.S. public says it wants the same thing, but it keeps right on watching.