NEWS RELEASE
For More Information Contact: Elizabeth Ben-Ishai (202) 588-7746
For Immediate Release: September 11th, 2000

Commercial Alert Urges Swift Action to Protect Children from Media Companies

Following the release of today’s scathing Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report on the “Marketing of Violent Entertainment to Children,” Commercial Alert called for media companies to immediately stop marketing violent entertainment to teenagers and children, and demanded action to protect children from the predatory marketing practices of the entertainment industry.

The FTC report “shows that the entertainment industry and its advertising surrogates are strenuously pushing a toxic culture on vulnerable and unsuspecting youth,” said Gary Ruskin, Director of Commercial Alert. “They are at war with American parents; they have no respect for families and the sanctity of the household. And they have no shame.”

The FTC report concludes the entertainment industry promotes violence to children in a deliberate and calculating manner. “Members of the motion picture, music recording and electronic game industries routinely target children under the age of 17 as the audience for movies, music and games that they themselves acknowledge are inappropriate for children or warrant parental caution due to their level of violent content,” the report states. “The target marketing of R-rated films, explicit-labeled music, and M-rated games to children under 17 is pervasive, and the target marketing of PG-13 rated films and T-rated games to children under 12 is common.”

The entertainment industry treats children’s minds “like oil fields or gold mines to be exploited for profit,” Ruskin said.

While the FTC report provides useful detail about the marketing practices of the movie, video game and music industries, it fails parents by recommending “tried and failed” techniques of industry self-regulation to halt the aggressive marketing of violent entertainment to children.

“The FTC’s toothless recommendations are a recipe for inaction, and a pathetic gesture that will make possible the continued profiteering from sales of violent products to children,” Ruskin said.

“Once again, parents see a system that shows more concern for corporations that prey on children, than for children themselves,” Ruskin said. “Parents pay taxes and they deserve something in return - certainly more than this.”

Commercial Alert urges immediate action to help parents fend off the aggressive marketing of violent entertainment to their children:

  • The President should issue an executive order stating that the federal government will not contract with any advertising agency that produces ads for violent entertainment, nor purchase advertising on any television program that is violent, or contains ads for violent entertainment.

  • Congress should require music company CEO’s to recite and distribute the lyrics for each label’s top ten selling songs at annual shareholders meetings.

  • Political parties should refuse and refund soft money campaign contributions from companies that produce violent entertainment.

  • Congress or the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should require TV stations to run public service announcements, as a condition of licensure, about the health hazards of watching violent programming before any violent program, or any ad for violent entertainment.

  • Congress should restore the FTC’s power to regulate advertising to children as an unfair act or practice, and affirmatively direct the FTC to undertake such action to protect children, and provide funding to enable it to do so.

  • The Surgeon General should launch a campaign to reduce children’s demand for violent entertainment.

  • Corporations should make available to parents, upon request, all advertising of violent entertainment that targets children.


Commercial Alert works to restrain the excesses of advertising, marketing and commercialism. Commercial Alert’s web page is at http://www.commercialalert.org.

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