forced to rely on sitcoms and other "inoffensive" programming. While some believe this is a good thing, others worry that viewers will turn to cable channels, and network programming will lose its audience, and therefore its advertiser funding. The true effect on the future of the networks will not be clear until many years after the V-chip is implemented. Many people simply dismiss the whole effort as largely a political maneuver. They claim that it will not make any noticeable difference in the content of television programming children are exposed to. The same parents who are concerned enough to program the V-chip are the ones who already monitor what their children watch. Parents who already allow their children uncontrolled access to the television are not likely to bother learning to program their V-chips. There would seem to be a lot of validity to this argument. It will be impossible to tell for sure how much of a difference the V-chip will make until enough time has passed for it to make it into a large fraction of homes. Reference Links(Also linked within the document) 1) President Clinton's Statement On Signing the Telecommunications Act of 1996 2) Telecommunications Act of 1996 3) Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 4) Closed-Captioning FAQ 5) VBI Information 6) Electronic Industries Association 7) TV Industry Statement on the V-Chip 8) Broadcasters Commit to Implementing a Rating System 9) ACLU Law Suit 10) Motion Picture Association of America Paper References11) "Why the Markey Chip Won't Hurt You," Broadcasting & Cable, August 14, 1995, pp 10-15. 12) Dickson, Glen, "How's It Work?" Broadcasting & Cable, February 12, 1996, p 24. 13) McConville, Jim, "V-Chip Battle Gets N.Y. Preview," Broadcasting & Cable, February 12, 1996, p 8. 14) Stern, Christopher, "Broadcasters Plotting V-Chip Legal Strategy," Broadcasting & Cable, February 12, 1996, p 23. 15) Stern, Christopher, "The V-Chip First Amendment Infringement vs. Empo...
