The following statement was issued by Patti Miller, vice president of Children Now, in reaction to today’s Federal Communications Commission report on television violence.

“We are very pleased that the Federal Communications Commission has formally recognized the harmful effects that television violence can have on young children. Decades of research has pointed to the relationship between viewing violent media and negative outcomes in children, such as increased aggressive behavior, heightened fear and desensitization to violence.

“For years broadcasters have placed the responsibility on parents, claiming that parents have a plethora of tools from which to choose to block violent programming from entering their homes. Yet the tools to which they refer, namely the V-chip and cable and satellite parental controls, depend upon the voluntary television rating system in order to work effectively. Broadcasters have compromised the usefulness of these tools by not applying the TV ratings in a consistent manner. Further, a 2004 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that one in five parents had never heard of the television ratings system and of those who had, barely half knew that the V rating indicated a show contained violent content. Furthermore, nearly 40% of parents felt that ratings were not applied accurately. This alone is enough to break parents’ trust in the parental controls.

“Children Now hopes that the FCC’s report will motivate the television industry to act on their responsibility to help parents protect their children from harmful programming by providing them with accurate, reliable and consistent ratings information.”