Violence Essay, Research Paper
Title: Industry Slow To Reform Marketing Violence To Kids. (cover
story)
Subject(s): VIOLENCE in mass media — United States; SOUND recording
industry — United States; ADVERTISING & youth — United States;
UNITED States. — Federal Trade Commission; LIEBERMAN, Joseph —
Political & social views
Source: Billboard, 05/05/2001, Vol. 113 Issue 18, p1, 2p, 1c
Author(s): Holland, Bill
Abstract: Looks at reaction to a follow-up study released by the
United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) which criticized the
record industry for not offering reforms to prevent the marketing of
violent products to children. Comment from Senator Joseph Lieberman
about the Recording Industry Association of America; Information about
a bill the would authorize the FTC to monitor and fine entertainment
industries that deceptively market adult-rated material to children;
AN: 4382343
ISSN: 0006-2510
Database: Academic Search Premier
Best Part
INDUSTRY SLOW TO REFORM MARKETING VIOLENCE TO KIDS
Dateline: WASHINGTON, D.C.
Officials from mental health, children’s, and public interest groups
made scathing indictments of record industry officials after the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued an April 24 follow-up study
lambasting the industry for not making reforms to prevent the
marketing of violent product to children.
“I’m surprised and disappointed in the record industry,” Sen. Joseph
Lieberman, D-Conn., told Billboard April 26 after the announcement of
a bill, co-sponsored by former first lady and Sen. Hillary Clinton,
D-N.Y., and Herb Kohl, D-Wis., that would authorize the FTC to monitor
and fine entertainment industries that deceptively market adult-rated
material to children. “Especially since the two other industries, the
movie studios and the video-game industry, have made strides to
improve their marketing in the last six months.”
Lieberman said the Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA) has
“sadly been MIA” – i.e., missing in action.
“Six months [after the FTC report], we can see who has responded to
the report and who has failed to answer the call,” Clinton said at the
joint announcement of the bill. “We are basing this [bill] on a very
simple premise: If you label something as inappropriate for children,
then you go out and try to entice our children to buy your product or
see it, you have engaged in false and deceptive advertising.”
The bill, if passed, would give the FTC the authority to penalize
companies with civil fines of up to $11,000 per offense.
RIAA senior executive VP and general counsel Cary Sherman commented
that the bill “raises serious constitutional red flags” and “would
have the unintentional result of discouraging participation” in the
industry’s voluntary stickering program.
That announcement of the bill follows an April 24 statement from the
chairman of the Commerce Committee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and
Sens. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C.; Sam Brownback, R-Kan.; and Max Cleland,
D-Ga., critical that the industry stopped short of legislative remedy.
The FTC’s “snapshot” update looked at what had changed since its
initial September 2000 report on violence and media (Billboard, Sept.
23). The FTC found that the movie and video-game industries had
instituted reforms but that the record industry had not made good on
promises.
Andrew Schwartzman, president of public interest law firm the Media
Access Group, believes the industry has brought the criticism upon
itself. “There is a difference between what one has a right to do and
what is socially responsible,” he says. “It appears they have targeted
a mass audience for this material, and then they’re ‘horrified’ when
it’s discovered what they’ve done. They’re being duplicitous – in the
end, they’re lying.”
He continues, “They say they’re not marketing to kids, but they are.
If they say one thing and do another, some people are going to argue
that that’s an unfair trade practice in violation of the law. So
they’re going to have to accept the consequences, and the consequences
are going to be contrary to artists’ interests and their own long-term
interests.”
Jeff McIntyre, federal affairs officer for the American Psychological
Assn., says, “Basically, it’s cowardly if you’re not going to stand
behind your word and not believe in your artists’ product enough to
make sales without having to back down behind Congress’s back and then
target this stuff at preadolescents.”
Dr. Michael Rich, spokesman for the American Pediatric Assn.’s
committee on education, says he’s not surprised by the FTC’s findings.
“I didn’t get a sense from [RIAA president Hilary Rosen's] testimony
at the original hearing in the fall, or from what has happened since,
that there’s much effort in any genuine sense to do anything about
it.”
Rich also continues to be alarmed by the unavailability in stores of
so-called sanitized versions of songs that children hear on radio.
“I’ve gone into Tower and HMV [in Boston], and you can’t get airplay
versions. In fact, it’s considered reprehensible in some stores to
even carry sanitized versions.”
RIAA PLAN WITHDRAWN
The FTC criticized the RIAA for withdrawing a plan to withhold ads
from media with an under-17 audience of more than 50%. The trade group
explained it did so because of the suggestion by some federal
lawmakers last fall that companies could be prosecuted for enforcement
failings.
Pam Horvitz, president of the National Assn. of Record Merchandisers
(NARM), says the lawsuit “serves as a perfect example of what could
happen to [label and retailers] – exposing us to liability for failing
to enforce voluntary guidelines.”
The RIAA had announced its guidelines Sept. 1, shortly before the
original Senate hearing (Billboard, Sept. 13). They included three
major updates: that advertising for labeled records should not appear
in publications or Internet sites where 50% of the audience is under
17, that all consumer print ads of explicit-content albums display the
advisory sticker, and that E-tailers clearly display notice of
stickered material through all phases of the transaction.
At the time the RIAA announ
response to the following day’s FTC report included her statement, “No
good deed goes unpunished.” Responding on April 25 to FTC criticism
that, some six months later, the RIAA had not yet implemented its own
promised guidelines, Rosen stated, “Any legislation that references a
voluntary program creates a disincentive to comply. It winds up
proving that no good deed goes unpunished.”
Confronted with the appearance the RIAA was trying to have things both
ways, Mary K. Engle of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection and
director of the study told Billboard the commission’s slam came
because the RIAA either withdrew or didn’t follow through on all its
own recommendations.
“They gave us three, and we were looking at all three,” Engle says.
“Then they only withdrew one of them – not placing ads in media with a
50% under-17 audience. But they didn’t withdraw the other two – and
they didn’t act on those two.”
VIOLENT SONG ADS ON TV
The FTC shows that U.S. record companies continue to advertise violent
songs on TV through such outlets as BET, MTV, and the WWF Smackdown
wrestling show. The ads appeared during the after-school and
early-evening hours when children were most likely to be watching.
The FTC also found that the five major labels placed ads for albums
with explicit content in such teen oriented magazines as Vibe and
Right On, which focus on rap and R&B, and Thrasher and Metal Edge,
which celebrate metal rock music. Universal Music Group placed more
advertisements – 25 – for stickered albums in youth magazines than any
other label. Warner Music Group had the fewest, with seven ads.
Only 45 of 147 (31%) print ads reviewed for labeled recordings
displayed any parental advisory label, the FTC noted, and those were
frequently “a black-and-white blur, often too small or inconspicuously
placed to be noticed or seen.”
The report also found that:
* There were few advisory label disclosures on TV ads. A spot check
found that only five of 23 ads showed the advisory label, and none
were clearly legible.
* On record company Web sites, “less than half of the sites provided
notice of a recording’s explicit content.” Few were legible.
* Such E-tailers as Amazon, Bestbuy.com, and CDnow did better in
providing “some information” about the explicit nature of the
recordings. Only Amazon complied fully with warnings in “large,
easy-to-read print, prominently displayed.”
The study also said that “neither the RIAA nor any of its members,
however, is willing to provide content description in advertising or
labeling.”
MUSIC INDUSTRY RESPONSE
Rosen said in a written statement that the RIAA didn’t have time to
update its two remaining reforms: “Unfortunately, the FTC report
followed too quickly on the heels of our implementation of these new
efforts.”
Michael Greene, president/CEO of the National Academy of Recording
Arts and Sciences, says the RIAA is “getting a raw deal” from the FTC
for the withdrawn plan to refrain from placing stickered-product ads
in youth-oriented media.
Greene says, “To have some of the states and private individuals – and
then even the inference that the FTC legal counsel themselves – were
going to look into bringing charges because that voluntary process was
not being implemented expeditiously enough, what did they expect the
RIAA to do? Of course they pulled it back.”
Danny Goldberg, chairman/CEO of Artemis Records, says that while the
FTC is right in calling for updated stickering policies, it crossed a
line. “The FTC made two main points: one reasonable, that the industry
show parental stickers in ads, and one unreasonable – the FTC seems to
have made a dictatorial decision that children under 17 shouldn’t be
allowed to buy stickered albums. This is not appropriate.” Goldberg
says that “while I totally respect the views of those who choose not
to allow their children to listen [to such albums], they have no right
to put that value system on the whole country.”
But Noah Stone, newly hired executive director of the Recording
Artists Coalition (RAC), says the RAC believes “that while artists
across the board are First Amendment advocates, because artists aren’t
involved in the marketing of their albums, they want the labels to do
so in a truthful and appropriate manner.”
NO VISUAL CORRELATION?
While the FTC recognized the efforts of the movie and video-game
industries to address the FTC’s concerns, Engle asserts that the RIAA
“ignored all of our suggestions,” such as moving to a
one-size-fits-all warning label.
Many record industry officials- – and some lawmakers –believe that a
label that describes visual media and offers age requirements, such as
for movies, videos, and video games, cannot be applied to sound
recordings. “There’s just no correlation between visuals and lyrics,
which can be interpretive,” Goldberg says.
Yet other observers have often noted that the music industry has spent
two decades helping support the visual media of music videos and music
television networks to both interpret and promote the sale of specific
music recordings via television.
Engle also takes the RIAA to task for spinning numbers in its
post-study statement, which says that the original FTC report in
September states that 75% of parents are satisfied with the RIAA’s
voluntary parental advisory program.
“They have misinterpreted what we reported,” she says. “That 75%
number was only of the parents who were aware of the system. You have
to subtract out the parents who had never even heard of the system.
And when you do that, the number of parents who said they were
somewhat satisfied or satisfied drops to about 54%.”
The FTC study chief also took individual record companies to task for
not stepping up to the plate with reforms. “Just because the trade
association didn’t institute changes doesn’t mean that individual
member companies couldn’t have done so.”
Meanwhile, the FTC’s Engle was pleased by one facet of Rosen’s written
statement, which read, “We agree that we need to do a better job of
following our own guidelines.”
Engle says, “I was glad to read that. She’s never said that before.”