Heat on Hollywood as FTC Ponders Curbs on Violence

Serving notice of a possible government crackdown on Hollywood, the head of the Federal Trade Commission asked his staff Monday to determine whether laws prohibiting misleading and unfair ads can be used to curb the industry’s marketing of violent films, music and video games to children.

The review ordered by FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky came as his agency issued a scathing 104-page report that found movie studios, record companies and video-game manufacturers used everything from comic books to television cartoons to systematically market violent adult fare to young consumers under age 17.

The report--citing internal documents that candidly laid out marketing strategies aimed at children--landed with a thud in Hollywood, where studio executives and industry leaders were mostly mute, still trying to figure out how to respond. Many are angry, maintaining that their industry again is being made a scapegoat for violence even though they are making fewer excessively violent movies.

Jack Valenti, chairman of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, reserved comment until a scheduled congressional hearing Wednesday. Hilary B. Rosen, president of the Recording Industry Assn. of America, released a two-line statement: “As an industry, we do not market violence; we market artists. When material is explicit we clearly label it for parents and guardians to make informed buying decisions for their kids.”

The report thrust the issue of entertainment marketing practices into the political arena, as Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore and members of Congress clamored to seize the moment.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers laid plans to grill entertainment leaders on the report’s findings at a hearing Wednesday before the Senate Commerce Committee. “Congress should respond swiftly to this report and implement stronger curbs on violence-related, youth-oriented advertising,” said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). As chairman of a panel overseeing the trade commission’s budget, Gregg is positioned to tack an anti-Hollywood rider onto a year-end spending bill. And Gore blasted Hollywood during an appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” later pledging at a campaign stop to give the industry six months to shape up before he pursues legislation to punish deceptive marketing.

“False and deceptive advertising is illegal under the current law, no matter what industry it is,” the vice president said.

Some chagrined entertainment company executives acknowledged that there is room for improvement. But they hastened to add that any government action would be misguided and premature, maintaining that the 1st Amendment shields the industry from interference in the way it markets and advertises its products.

“I was surprised at the examples they uncovered from our members,” Doug Lowenstein, president of the Interactive Video Software Assn., said of the FTC’s report. “And certainly in no way do we condone marketing mature products to people under 17. But I’m not sure what basis there is for any legal action.”

In a 20-minute interview Monday, Pitofsky expressed “surprise over the extent of marketing” of violent entertainment to children. He said that, lacking expanded self-regulation by the industry, his staff would find ways to take action under existing laws or encourage Congress to pass new ones.

Entertainment industry executives “market their products in a way that is inconsistent with [their] own ratings. . . . That’s deceptive or unfair,” said Pitofsky, a 70-year-old antitrust scholar and former dean of Georgetown University Law School.

Regulation of marketing practices is not inconsistent with 1st Amendment protections, Pitofsky said. He emphasized that legal action would be a sanction of last resort, unnecessary if the industry reforms. But he vowed to pursue legal action if necessary.

“The real question is what is deceptive and what is unfair. If we conclude [that the present law] doesn’t reach this behavior, then we can have new legislation,” the chairman said.

Some legal experts expressed doubt about how effectively the FTC could proceed against the entertainment industry under the 85-year-old statute prohibiting unfair and deceptive advertising.

To bring a successful case, said William C. MacLeod, a Washington antitrust lawyer and former head of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, the commission would have to show that a deceptive ad could mislead consumers to their detriment or that an unfair ad causes some injury that is not reasonably avoidable.

Traditionally, deceptive advertising laws have been used to punish companies making false product claims. The manufacturer of Doans Pills, for example, was recently ordered to run corrective ads after running afoul of the regulations.

“The commission will certainly have a battle on its hands” in not only proving that entertainment advertising is false but that it intentionally harms children, MacLeod said.

Although few were surprised by the FTC report’s core finding that the industry markets violence to children, the $1-million, 15-month study unearthed damning details of the strategies and tactics used to attract young audiences.

In one case, an unnamed studio invited a 10-year-old to preview a film that eventually received an “R” rating. Another marketing memo for an unnamed R-rated movie aimed to find the “elusive teen target audience and make sure everyone between the ages of 12-18 was exposed to the film.”

But legal restraint that prevented the FTC from naming specific films, songs, video games or the companies that made them illustrated how hamstrung the government may be in policing a powerful and largely unregulated industry.

Confidentiality laws prohibit the FTC from disclosing the source of the hundreds of boxes of documents that remain under lock and key at the commission’s headquarters.

Indeed, one remedy suggested by Pitofsky is exposure of the worst offenders by industry leaders themselves. “A little sunlight might be a very effective sanction,” he said at a news conference.

In a later interview, Pitofsky said he would prefer that the industry regulate itself by tightening labeling guidelines and publishing an annual assessment of the effectiveness of keeping violent material out of the hands of children.

The entertainment industry has been under government scrutiny since June 1999, when President Clinton asked for the FTC review. The request followed a massacre that took 15 lives at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., by two teenagers believed to have been influenced by the media.

The government found that children have easy access to adult-oriented material at theaters and stores.

Some segments of the industry reacted even before the report was released. Two of the nation’s largest retailers, Wal Mart and K mart, last week announced plans to restrict the sale of such video games to youths under age 17. And the recording industry plans to toughen policing of its marketing campaigns starting Oct. 1.

Members of the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), hope to use their hearing Wednesday to encourage movie studios to initiate reforms. Witnesses for the entertainment industry will include its trade leaders: Valenti, Rosen and Lowenstein. Executives for record and video-game companies also are expected to appear.

But the only movie studio executive who had been scheduled to testify--Universal Pictures’ Chairwoman Stacey Snider--backed out Monday, infuriating committee members who accused the studios of stonewalling.

“Chairman McCain is very disappointed at the lack of willingness of studio executives to come before the committee. Their silence speaks volumes about their level of corporate responsibility,” said David Crane, a committee aide.

Groups opposed to media violence were quick to applaud the commission’s report and urged additional government action against the purveyors of violent fare.

“We now have evidence of what we suspected all along about the entertainment industry,” said Robert Knight, senior director of cultural studies at the Family Research Council, an advocacy group based in Washington. “The tobacco industry was forced to discontinue its use of ‘Joe Camel’ because it obviously targeted kids. Well, Hollywood has a ‘Joe Camel’ problem of its own--aggressive marketing of adult material to underage children.”

The report “lays bare the dark underbelly” of the entertainment industry that has “abused the trust placed in them by millions of parents,” added Daphne White, executive director of the Lion & Lamb Project, another group opposed to media violence.

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Times staff writers Nick Anderson in Washington and James Gerstenzang with the Gore campaign contributed to this story.

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HOLLYWOOD UNDER FIRE

Movie executives run for cover after FTC accuses industry of peddling violence to minors. C1