View source for How much violence will your child see next week?

{{article
| publication = Daily Express
| file = 1970-03-21 Daily Express.jpg
| px = 350
| height = 
| width = 
| date = 1970-03-21
| author = James Thomas
| pages = 8
| language = English 
| type = 
| description = 
| categories = violence
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| morePublications = 
| moreDates = 
| text = 
AS TELEVISION'S CRIME RATE COMES UNDER FIRE...

VIOLENCE on television is in the spotlight once again.

It may be "a positive inducement to increasing disorder and violence," Mr. John Stonehouse, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, said yesterday.

That's a strong statement-and it reflects the opinion of Chief Constables throughout the country who have reported the soaring rate in violence.

There's lots of evidence to back it up.

In America children can watch a crime of violence on TV every few minutes. In Britain next week, B.B.C. and ITV between them will show 22 programmes in which an act of violence could occur.

All the way through the years from "The Borderers" to "Manhunt" there is the theme of cruelty and conflict.

It has got both Mr. Stonehouse and the Home Secretary worried - as well parents.

But apparently extra steps are to be taken to cut down the blood and thunder to which all our children are exposed.

How much do the TV companies themselves care? To be fair, a good deal. Faceless men with thick spectacles daily inhabit the catacomb theatres of the programme companies, watching every foot of film and videotape, cutting out hangings, torture scenes, anything they think might incite crime.

Yet scenes of appalling brutality still slip through the net-as they did recently in Ken Russell's film about Richard Strauss.

What frightens me is the fact that children see so much violence that the real thing-the riots, the battles in Vietnam or the Middle East captured by the newsreel cameras has also ceased to move them.

A battered policeman in Ulster, a blazing child in Vietnam, get no more than a Sympathy defeated Red Indian in a Western. The dreadful perils of a man landing on the moon have long been overshadowed by the horrific adventures of "Dr. Who." Children are finding it difficult to know what is fact and what is fiction.

An American national commission, worried about the exposure of children to five to seven hours of TV every day. pointed out that if TV has no influence, as the programme planners tell us, why should advertisers be spending £1,000 million a year on commercials?

In Britain a survey made for ITV found that "for some people violence could be detrimental," and reported "we would be wise not to underestimate the risk."

The risk in Britain could be much greater than it is. Films and videotapes "vetted" by the ITV companies are stripped of 30 per cent of violent scenes if they are to be shown before 7 p.m., and even up to 25 per cent in adult viewing time after 9 p.m. Meetings are now being arranged between the B.B.C. and executives of the Independent TV Authority to try to decide the difficult question of what is violence - what is acceptable and what is harmful on the enlightened screens of 1970.

Murder, rape and gore may certainly again attract the attention of the watchdogs of TV - and even the TV producers themselves are demanding a royal commission which will face the facts.

But that would be a six-year task. Between them, surely, the B.B.C. and the ITA should be able to put the situation right in six months or less. It is at least a healthy sign that there is in the studios a new awareness of responsibility.

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