The Networks Run for Cover

By Richard Zoglin

Producer John Langley was screening a rough cut of his new Fox network show Cop Files a couple of weeks ago, and he wasn't happy. In one scene, a female police officer surprises a burglary suspect in a warehouse; he attacks her savagely, then she shoots him in self-defense. When Fox censors objected to the violence, Langley was forced to make drastic excisions. "It was absurd," he says. "The pressure was on us to de-emphasize the attack, so you wound up showing her shooting him without any motivation." Langley, like many others in Hollywood, knows the reason for this outbreak of squeamishness: the networks have suddenly got religion on the subject of violence.

After several rounds of congressional hearings that aired concerns about violence on TV, the four networks last month announced a joint response. Starting in September, they will attach a warning label -- DUE TO SOME VIOLENT CONTENT, PARENTAL DISCRETION ADVISED -- to shows with high levels of mayhem. Over the past two weeks, network executives have trooped before junketing TV journalists in Los Angeles to stress their concerns about violence -- and assert that they aren't the only ones to blame. Next Monday a heavyweight lineup of TV producers, network executives and other industry bigwigs will meet to explore the violence issue at a daylong "summit conference" sponsored by the National Council for Families and Television.

Initial reaction to the networks' labeling plan was predictably skeptical. Critics, from conservative watchdog Terry Rakolta to earnest newspaper columnists, complained that the warning label was a cop-out, a Band-Aid solution that would not reduce violence but would simply point out more clearly where to find it. But as production for the new season gets under way, the impact of the new label is shaping up as substantial, maybe even crippling. The Clean Up Your Network campaign may help make TV safer for kids, but it will almost certainly make network programming even blander than it already is.

The irony of the current outcry is that it comes at a time when violence on the networks is at a low ebb. Five, 10 or 15 years ago, the prime-time schedules were packed with turbulent crime shows like The A-Team, Miami Vice, Hunter and Hill Street Blues. These have all but disappeared, replaced by sitcoms, magazine shows and "soft" dramas like L.A. Law and Northern Exposure. Violence is largely confined to a few reality shows, Cops, America's Most Wanted, and true-crime TV movies -- which are abundant but whose violence looks positively prim beside the brutality of any Lethal Weapon sequel or Schwarzenegger extravaganza.

Still, faced with public concern about the effect TV violence might be having on young viewers, the networks have vowed to scrub their houses even cleaner. The label itself may turn out to be sparingly used. Network officials say few, if any, of their regular series will be so branded; only Steven Bochco's racy new cop show for ABC, NYPD Blue, has been singled out as likely to get a weekly warning. In general, the label will be applied on a case-by- case basis to certain TV movies and individual episodes of regular series.

The real question is whether a "V" label -- like an R or NC-17 rating for feature films -- will become a stigma to be avoided at almost all costs. The fear is that advertisers, always skittish about controversial programs that might inspire a letter-writing campaign or an advertiser boycott, will be scared off by any show that carries the label. Madison Avenue veterans think they will. "Advertisers will be lemming-like in their avoidance of these programs," says Gene DeWitt, president of his own New York City media management firm, "because advertising on them will just be asking for trouble." Asserts Betsy Frank, a senior vice president of Saatchi & Saatchi: "You are shining a spotlight on certain programs and on advertisers who are supporting those programs. In effect, it's saying these advertisers support violence."

Producers are justifiably worried about the chilling effect this could have on provocative programming. "Once you get advertising redlining, you'll have a debilitating effect on some of TV's most powerful dramas," says Dick Wolf, executive producer of NBC's Law & Order. "When Law & Order started, we did episodes on subjects like abortion-clinic bombings. In this current environment, I don't know if those would ever have gotten made." The network standards-and-practices departments are already increasing their vigilance. "We're used to dealing with Standards & Practices on a daily basis in terms of language and violence," says Langley of Cop Files. "But they've become even more cautious recently." ABC Entertainment chief Ted Harbert, speaking to affiliates in June, promised that the network would "work to keep the violence to the absolute minimum" this fall. George Vradenburg 3d, executive vice president of Fox Inc., vows "increased attention not only to the depiction of violence but also to whether there are appropriate ways to resolve conflicts without using violence." One CBS show has already been affected: Walker, Texas Ranger, a western starring Chuck Norris that premiered in the spring, will be less violent when it returns to the fall schedule, network programmers say.

The program drawing the most scrutiny is NYPD Blue; it is an admitted effort by Bochco, creator of Hill Street Blues, to do network TV's first R-rated series. The pilot episode contains a steamy sex scene with rear nudity, relatively rough language ("You pissy little bitch"), and some strong violence. In the face of affiliate discomfort -- roughly a third of ABC station executives polled at a recent network meeting said they might not run the show -- Bochco said he would consider making some changes: "I'm trying to be sensitive to the concerns without compromising the show."

The anti-violence campaign may have an even greater impact in the shows that viewers won't see. All three networks have said they will back off from their overzealous pursuit of true-crime movies of the week. ABC, which drew fire for its two-parter in May about 1950s mass murderer Charles Starkweather, has turned down a proposed TV movie about 1960s mass murderer Richard Speck. Critics may cheer at the demise of this tawdry TV-movie crime wave, but good films may get hurt in the process. ABC had planned to air the explosively violent (and Oscar-winning) film Goodfellas this season, complete with an introduction by director Martin Scorsese in which he asserts the film is not a glorification of violence. In the current climate, the network has decided to pull the film from this season's schedule.

Meanwhile, network executives are complaining loudly about being made scapegoats for a larger problem in society. "The TV networks are a lot easier target than the National Rifle Association," notes CBS Entertainment president Jeff Sagansky. He and others point out that most TV violence is found not on the networks but on syndicated shows like The Untouchables and Highlander, and on cable channels, which are still free to air whatever they want. Not to mention video games, rented movies -- and, of course, real life. "There's nothing more violent than watching the 11 o'clock news at night, and nothing more toxic," contends Peter Guber, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment. "Baby Falls Out of Window! Tune in at 11! We have to apply the same standards to all visual images -- not just what we call entertainment, but news, information and reality-based programs."

The controversy over whether TV violence truly affects the way people act will continue to roil, with little chance of being resolved conclusively. For now, however, those alarmed by violence have the upper hand. Until viewers raise new alarms by tuning out in search of more stimulating entertainment, network TV seems headed for a dull, discreet stretch.

With reporting by Georgia Harbison/New York and Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles