Bill Clinton: “Let me try to answer you based on what I know now. Of course, that is the controversy about the proposed television…”

“Let me try to answer you based on what I know now. Of course, that is the controversy about the proposed television rating system which the industry has come up with. They said that they would try to develop a television rating system which would more or less parallel the movie rating system. I have not yet had a report on it, but apparently that is what they have done. All I know is what all of you have reported about it, but apparently that is what they have done. Therefore, the big conflict now is whether the rating system should be more content-based instead of age-based. This is like the movie system except it has more age categories than the movie system, as I understand it. I guess what I would say to you is that I believe that it's a good thing that on these cable movies you have--you get a sort of a sheet comes on the screen and checks the content issues. But it's a very different thing with all of these hundreds and hundreds of television programs that are on and everything. What I would say is, let's remember how far we've come. This has been debated for 10 years. We now have one; we're going to have one a year before televisions have to start including the V-chip. The industry itself has promised to review where they are within 10 months. So what I think we should do, since I feel very strongly the Government should not do this--this must be an industry-based thing, the Government should not be involved in this--what I think ought to happen is that all of the parents in the country ought to look at these ratings, ask themselves the questions you've just asked, check the shows against the ratings, give it 10 months to work, and then if they're inadequate or there needs to be some more content in the rating systems, then after a 10-month test period we'll be able to make that argument, I think, all of us. And I think the industry has shown that they're interested in doing something here. I believe that at this moment we shouldn't say that the whole thing is not worth doing, I think, because it does bear rough parallels to what's been done in the movies, except there are more age categories, as I understand it. Foreign Campaign Contributions”