Bill Clinton: “Let me explain. This technology--you get this if you hook into a satellite where you may have access to large numbers of…”

“Let me explain. This technology--you get this if you hook into a satellite where you may have access to large numbers of channels and a large number of movies. The difference in this and the Telecommunications Act is that it requires this V-chip which I want to show you. This is a V-chip. And it will be required to be put into all new television sets so that as every family in America buys a new set, they will have this. The V-chip basically is a power to the parent, a technology marvel. It enables everybody to have all the benefits of television. It will enable everyone to have the benefits of the new developments coming out of the telecommunications revolution, but it will give parents more control over the content of the programming to which their young children are exposed. Let me say I think it's quite important. Just this week we have seen another major study chronicling the destructive impact on young children of hours and hours and hours of mindless violence and the so numbing impact it has on our young children. So that's what the V-chip is designed to do. It will add about a dollar to the cost of every television set--a little less, actually. And we replace our TV sets at the rate of about 25 million a year, so as you can see, it will rapidly come to be a very important part of American family's arsenal of tools for raising children. And there's another benefit that this will bring as well. I have challenged the leaders of the entertainment industry to come and meet with me about this, to talk about how we can develop a rating system for television programs like we have a rating system for movies. And we believe as more and more families get this and exercise their options under it and as more and more information is available to parents, that it will change the programming so that even parents who can't afford to buy a new television this year or next year as the V-chip comes out will begin to benefit from it. So that's what the V-chip is. I guess I want to bring you back to Al, and he wants to say a few words before we turn it over to---- [The Vice President introduced Tipper Gore, who expressed her long- standing concern about children's exposure to graphic and violent television programming and thanked the President for enabling families to protect their children in their own homes. She then invited the participants to comment. The first participant said she was excited about the opportunity to decide what would come into her home through the airwaves. An elementary school principal and father said that television had more power to influence children than schools did in terms of time and that the V-chip represented a giant step in saving the children. He also raised the issue of candy produced in the form of syringes.]”