FCC Chairman Backs Bill on TV Content

In a break with the White House, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt on Wednesday endorsed legislation calling on the television networks to reinstitute their old code of conduct, which included an early-evening family hour free of racy and violent programming.

Broadcasters protested that their recent agreement to adopt a new system of rating television programs for sex, violence, foul language and suggestive dialogue should immunize them from such legislation. The deal with children’s groups and key members of Congress included a moratorium on legislation about television ratings and content.

“This is not helpful,” Martin D. Franks, CBS senior vice president, said in an interview. “I don’t think people realize how fragile this agreement is.”

But, noting that the public “increasingly is expressing its concerns about the content--and lack of content--of certain kinds of [TV] programming,” Hundt told a congressional hearing he “enthusiastically” supports the television measure proposed by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). The bill would give the networks an antitrust exemption to work together to create a “voluntary” family hour. Hundt also endorsed including a possible ban on hard-liquor advertising as part of the code.

White House sources said Vice President Al Gore, who announced the TV ratings deal only a week ago, did not agree with Hundt’s move.

Other network executives, who declined to be quoted, were angry that Hundt took such a stance because the FCC still has to vote on whether to approve the industry’s new TV ratings system.

Hundt said the two issues were separate. “I supported [the Lieberman-Brownback] bill months ago,” Hundt said in an interview. “I believe it’s a good idea, and I’d like to see the networks have a voluntary code that would allow them to deal with advertising products. I did not comment on the TV ratings guidelines. That’s a separate issue, which will come before the FCC.”