Hollywood Acknowledges Kids’ Exposure to Violence

Facing a hostile Congress and the threat of a federal crackdown, entertainment industry leaders grudgingly acknowledged Wednesday that they may have “stepped over the line” in advertising violent entertainment to children and vowed to consider ways to better keep adult-oriented products out of young hands.

Industry executives, moving slightly away from their traditionally defiant stance, told lawmakers that they could not defend peddling to children as young as 10 music, movies and video games rated for mature audiences--a marketing tactic documented in a stinging Federal Trade Commission report released this week.

“That is simply a practice that we do not condone,” said Peter Moore, president of Sega of America Inc., an electronic game manufacturer. “I assure you that we are working to ensure that such instances do not happen in the future.”

“Is it suitable to target very young children in advertising R-rated films. . . ? No it is not,” conceded Jack Valenti, the film industry’s chief Washington lobbyist. He vowed to meet with the major studios and theater owners to address the FTC’s findings.

Such statements, made at an often-confrontational Senate Commerce Committee hearing called in the wake of the report, were a rare acknowledgment that the industry may have gone too far in marketing to children. The report revealed internal corporate plans to use Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H Clubs and school newspapers to sell products that the industry itself deemed appropriate for mature audiences.

Not a single film studio executive accepted the invitation to attend Wednesday’s daylong hearing, leaving a handful of music chiefs, video company presidents and lobbyists to defend an industry under government assault since the 1999 Columbine High School shootings, which claimed 15 lives, called into question the effects of violent entertainment on children.

Lawmakers branded some of the industry’s most popular sellers “garbage” and its marketers “shameless salesmen.”

Politics abounded: Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph I. Lieberman reissued his call for a “cease-fire” on the sale of adult-rated products to children, threatening to pursue legislation if the industry fails to respond. And Lynne Cheney, wife of GOP vice president nominee Dick Cheney, noted that Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore has embraced the FTC findings even as he continues to attend lucrative star-studded fund-raisers.

McCain Reveals One Company’s Ad Plans

In a sign of the no-holds-barred stance Congress might take as the battle unfolds, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) used the muscle of his committee staff to unmask one company cited anonymously in the FTC report. The company tried unsuccessfully to convince Nickelodeon, a network that caters to children under 12, to advertise a violent PG-13 film. McCain announced that the company was Sony and the film “The Fifth Element,” starring Bruce Willis.

The absence of the major movie studio executives--all of whom sent Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, to speak for them--was conspicuous. Their failure to appear in person left the committee chairman, McCain, fuming.

“I can only conclude the industry was too ashamed of, or unable to defend, their marketing practices. Their hubris is stunning and serves to underscore the lack of corporate responsibility so strikingly apparent in this report,” McCain said, adding that at least one executive was not too busy to attend a political fund-raiser this week.

He promptly scheduled a second hearing for Sept. 27 and challenged the 13 studio chiefs to attend.

Valenti explained that one executive was in London, another in Australia, another on maternity leave. “The fact that these people are not here is not because they are ducking and running . . . it is because they have other things on their schedule that they simply could not erase.”

By Wednesday evening, however, acceptances from movie studios to attend the Sept. 27 hearing were pouring in. Alan Horn, Warner Bros. president and chief operating officer who heads the studio’s film division, will attend, the company said. And Mel Harris, chief operating officer of Sony Pictures Entertainment, will be there, Sony officials said.

DreamWorks SKG, the studio founded by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, said it would send a representative, although it was not immediately known whom that would be. And 20th Century Fox confirmed that either Tom Rothman or Jim Gianopulos, co-chairmen of the studio, will be there, while the Walt Disney Co. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer said their studios would also send representatives.

Wednesday’s hearing was the latest of several clashes between Congress and the entertainment industry since the Columbine tragedy spurred a government effort to restrict children’s exposure to violent images, a sporadic crusade that has often fallen flat.

But the FTC report opened the door to a new strategy that many lawmakers are eager to pursue: regulating not the content of entertainment, which is protected by the 1st Amendment, but the marketing of it, which the industry could find harder to defend.

Lawmakers Go After Marketing of Content

Citing the Children’s Television Act of 1990, which limits marketing on children’s programming, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) suggested that selling violent products could be similarly restricted.

“It has never been the law of the land, nor will it ever be, that those engaged in the sale of a product that harms children will have an unfettered right to cause that harm,” Markey said. “It’s no different from a safety cap on a medicine bottle or a seat-belt in a car.”

While recent encounters over violence between Congress and the industry have ended in standoffs, there appeared to be some movement in the aftermath of the report. Lawmakers offered up legislation not to punish the industry but to help its leaders collaborate to set marketing standards without violating antitrust laws. And industry officials said that they were willing to explore ways to help parents screen violent material, such as publishing song lyrics or providing more detailed information about the content of adult-oriented products in their rating systems.

And Tuesday, the Walt Disney Co. issued a pledge to keep R-rated movie ads off its ABC television network during prime time.

“There is nothing wrong with considering and perhaps adopting a more robust system,” said Strauss Zelnick, president of the music company BMG Entertainment and the only CEO to appear Wednesday.

But the industry representatives were hardly conciliatory or contrite. In a spirited defense, Valenti cited a rating system that has been advising parents for 32 years “so they can make judgments on their own about what movie they want their children to see or not to see.” He cited surveys showing that 81% of parents of children younger than 13 find the ratings beneficial.

Even while agreeing they are loath to censor creative content, committee members made clear that they mean business. They pressed FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky, who oversaw the $1-million study, about his agency’s power to use deceptive advertising laws against companies that continue to advertise violence to children.

Pitofsky did not shy away from the possibility of legal action, even endorsing narrowly defined new legislation. But he said that such moves should be of last resort. “We would be in the courts for several years.”

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Times staff writer Robert W. Welkos in Los Angeles contributed to this story.