Report: Explicit Music Marketed to Children

W A S H I N G T O N, April 24 -- Record companies are continuing to peddle music with explicit lyrics to children, according to a new report by government regulators.

The Federal Trade Commission says the recording industry "has not visibly responded" to its calls to stop targeting violent and sexually explicit material to underage consumers, even as movie and video game companies "improved and enhanced" their marketing practices.

"Unfortunately, the music industry response, at least so far, has been disappointing in its failure to institute positive reforms," FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky said in a statement.

First Study Was Ordered After Columbine

The 47-page report released today is a follow-up to a study commissioned in 1999 by then-President Clinton in the wake of the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo. The resulting report, released last fall, harshly criticized entertainment companies for routinely marketing explicit films, games and music to minors, and appealed to the industries to police themselves more aggressively.

Today's so-called snapshot report says the music industry has been particularly defiant.

"The Commission's review makes clear that industry members continue to advertise explicit content recordings in magazines or on television programs with substantial under-17 audiences," the report says.

David Walsh, founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family, said the industry's actions amount to a "poke in the eye" of parents of young children.

"The recording industry … has done nothing more than kind of give a poke in the eye," he said. "They seem to be very reluctant or resistant to try and do anything to really kind of help parents do a better job of monitoring the media diet of their kids."

"There's no defiance here," insisted Hillary Rosen, president of the Recording Industry Association of America. "These are artists, creative works and people have a right to express themselves artistically and creatively."