Almost from its inception, television has attracted critics concerned with violence portrayed in prime-time and Saturday morning children's programs. Spokesmen for the broadcast industry took the position that television and the violence portrayed on television had no affect on behavior of the viewer. To many this was a strange position for an industry that was also selling commercial time with the specific intent to influence the viewer's purchasing behavior
             Both broadcasters and media activists have collected research data on the number of violent acts portrayed during entertainment programming and the effects of viewing television violence. More important, the industry conducted research and subscribed to rating systems to ascertain what people were watching. Numbers were most important because network and station revenues were not impacted by the effects of television, but by the numbers of people of a specific age range (market segment) who were watching television.
             As time went on, it became clear to media researchers that no single study that points to television violence as a "cause" of aggressive or violent behavior, but that television is certainly a "contributing factor" to an individual's aggressive behavior and to the problem of violence in society. The research also pointed to two other effects:
             · Developing insensibility to violence
             · Developing an excessive fear of violence.
             Dr. George Gerbner described the latter as a "mean world syndrome" where the viewer perceives the world as more violent than it actually is.
             The summer of 1993 marked an important milestone for the issue of television violence. Due to the work of Senator Paul Simon (D-IL), the industry met and discussed the issue media violence with media activists. For the first time the industry leaders acknowledged that there may be some reason for concern. The broadcast industry and the cable industry both agreed to monitor their offerings for l...