I 
109TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 5919 
To empower parents to protect children from increasing depictions of indecent 
material on television. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 27, 2006 
Mr. LIPINSKI (for himself and Mr. OSBORNE) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce 
A BILL 
To empower parents to protect children from increasing 
depictions of indecent material on television. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Family Choice Act of 
2006’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Subscription television services have estab-
lished a pervasive presence in the lives of Americans, 
including American children. Over 80 percent of 
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American households subscribe to multi-channel 
video programming. Approximately 58.6 percent of 
all households subscribe to cable television service, 
and approximately 23 percent subscribe to direct 
broadcast satellite (in this section referred to as 
‘‘DBS’’) service. Of those subscribing to cable serv-
ice, 88 percent subscribe to expanded basic service, 
while just 12 percent subscribe only to basic service. 
Fewer than half of American households subscribing 
to cable have digital cable service. 
(2) The substantial majority of American chil-
dren have access to multi-channel video program-
ming in their home. Approximately 74 percent of 
children from ages 2 through 18 live in homes with 
cable or DBS service, and 78 percent of children 
under the age of 7 live in homes with such service. 
Of those homes with children subscribing to cable 
service, the vast majority subscribe to expanded 
basic cable service. Approximately 20,900,000 house-
holds with children subscribe to expanded basic cable 
service, while just 2,900,000 households with chil-
dren subscribe only to basic cable service. 
(3) American children, on average, spend a sig-
nificant part of their day watching television, includ-
ing cable programming. According to Nielsen Media 
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Research, children ages 2 through 11 watch an aver-
age of 3 hours and 15 minutes of television per day, 
and children ages 12 through 17 watch an average 
of 3 hours, 7 minutes of television per day. Children 
in homes with subscriptions to multi-channel video 
programming watch, on average, about 67 percent 
more television than children in homes with only 
broadcast television service. 
(4) Many adults and most children do not dis-
tinguish between broadcast channels and cable chan-
nels. Rather, they view them as interchangeable and 
regularly switch between these types of channels. 
(5) Children often watch television in the ab-
sence of parental supervision. For example, many 
children watch television when they are home alone 
after school while their parents are still at work, and 
many children watch television at friends’ houses 
when their own parents are not present. A Kaiser 
Family Foundation report in March 2005 found that 
68 percent of children ages 8 through 18 have a tel-
evision set in their bedroom, and 37 percent have 
subscription multi-channel video service in their bed-
rooms. Furthermore, according to the Department 
of Education, 81 percent of children ages 2 through 
7 sometimes watch television without adult super-
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vision. Additionally, a 2003 Kaiser Family Founda-
tion White Paper found that 91 percent of children 
ages 4 through 6 have turned on the television by 
themselves. 
(6) Multichannel video programming distribu-
tors, such as cable and DBS operators, are critical 
sources of video programming, such as public affairs 
programming, news programming and educational 
programming, which is not duplicated by broadcast 
television. Cable operators on average offer 25 chan-
nels in their basic tier of programming and approxi-
mately 45 additional channels in their expanded 
basic tier. Cable channels offering educational, infor-
mational, or entertainment programming that is ap-
propriate for or attractive to children are generally 
included on the same expanded basic tier as chan-
nels offering programming that is sexually explicit. 
Parents are generally not given the choice of only 
purchasing channels that carry programming that is 
appropriate for children. 
(7) Indecent programming on channels carried 
on extended basic cable service is pervasive. Sexually 
explicit material is shown more than twice as often 
in original cable programming than in broadcast 
programming. 
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(8) Complaints about indecent cable program-
ming have increased exponentially in recent years. In 
2004, the Federal Communications Commission re-
ceived 700 percent more cable indecency complaints 
than it received in 2003. 
(9) Parents are concerned that indecent pro-
gramming is being aired on cable channels viewed by 
children. A Kaiser Family Foundation White Paper 
has found that most parents believe cable program-
ming should be subject to the same indecency rules 
as broadcast television. In addition, during the first 
half of 2005, the Federal Communications Commis-
sion received 10 or more complaints about alleged 
indecency or obscenity on 20 different cable net-
works. Of these 20 cable networks, 15 rank in the 
top 25 cable networks watched by children ages 2 
through 11 during prime time, and 17 rank in the 
top 25 networks watched by children ages 12 
through 17 during prime time. Most of the cable 
programs about which indecency complaints have 
been filed with the Federal Communications Com-
mission aired during hours when many children are 
watching television. 
(10) Because subscribers to multichannel video 
programming and their children often ‘‘channel- 
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surf’’ to find out what is on television, they are sus-
ceptible to unexpected exposure to unwanted con-
tent. Cable subscribers on average use their remote 
control to sample more channels before choosing a 
program than do those viewers who only receive 
over-the-air broadcasting, thus making cable sub-
scribers more susceptible to being confronted by un-
wanted material. According to a study conducted in 
2002 by the Cable Television Administration & Mar-
keting Society, over 60 percent of cable subscribers 
use their remote controls to ‘‘channel-surf,’’ that is, 
to find out what is on television. Moreover, approxi-
mately 75 percent of children of ages 4 through 6 
have changed channels using a remote control ac-
cording to a 2003 Kaiser Family Foundation White 
Paper. 
(11) The ‘‘v-chip’’ does not effectively protect 
children from indecent programming carried by mul-
tichannel video programming distributors. According 
to a 2004 Survey by Knowledge Networks SRI, most 
of the television sets currently in use in the United 
States are not equipped with a v-chip, and of the 
280,000,000 sets currently in United States house-
holds, approximately 161,000,000 are not equipped 
with a v-chip. Households that have a television set 
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