Nobody would invite a ruthless thug into his or her home to commit murder and mayhem. But a "TV Violence Report Card" says American television viewers do just that 10 times per hour during prime time.
The survey, released by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., also shows that children witness almost eight times more death and destruction on Saturday morning cartoons - an average of 76 incidents per hour."(Producers) have every right in this country to put some of this trash on television - there's no doubt about that," said Dorgan, sponsor of a bill that would require the Federal Communications Commission to issue a quarterly listing of the most violent programs and their sponsors. "But we have every right to fight back with information."
The survey said the most violent offender during prime time was Fox's "Adventures of Brisco County Jr.," with 117 violent acts per hour - or one every 30 sec-onds.
Fox officials noted that the show is a slapstick Western.
"This shows the absurdity of trying to measure violence in this fashion," said Betsy Hoffman, Fox spokeswoman in Los Angeles.
"Much of this debate has been misdirected," said Fox's Preston Padden. "It would be more productive for the television industry and the government to work cooperatively to address the larger problem of violence in our society." The survey was conducted by 109 students at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn. They viewed 150 hours of prime-time network television taped from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4.
Each segment was scored by two people working independently using grades established by the National Coalition on TV Violence. Violence was defined as "the deliberate and hostile use of overt force by one individual against another."
The survey also rated 12 cable channels during prime time on Oct. 27 and Saturday morning children's programs on Oct. 7.
Dorgan said the survey wasn't intended to be exhaustive but rather a demonstration of how a TV report card might work.
Results showed the four commercial broadcast networks showed more violent acts per hour - an average of 11.3 - than the 12 cable channels, which showed an average of 8.4 violent acts per hour.