822
Opinion of the Court
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 520 U. S. 180, 187 (1997) (reviewing " 'a record of tens of thousands of pages' of evidence" developed through "three years of pre-enactment hearings, . . . as well as additional expert submissions, sworn declarations and testimony, and industry documents" in support of complex must-carry provisions). If the number of children transfixed by even flickering pornographic television images in fact reached into the millions we, like the District Court, would have expected to be directed to more than a handful of complaints.
No support for the restriction can be found in the near barren legislative record relevant to this provision. Section 505 was added to the Act by floor amendment, accompanied by only brief statements, and without committee hearing or debate. See 141 Cong. Rec. 15586-15589 (1995). One of the measure's sponsors did indicate she considered time channeling to be superior to voluntary blocking, which "put[s] the burden of action on the subscriber, not the cable company." Id., at 15587 (statement of Sen. Feinstein). This sole conclusory statement, however, tells little about the relative efficacy of voluntary blocking versus time channeling, other than offering the unhelpful, self-evident generality that voluntary measures require voluntary action. The Court has declined to rely on similar evidence before. See Sable Communications, 492 U. S., at 129-130 ("[A]side from conclusory statements during the debates by proponents of the bill, . . . the congressional record presented to us contains no evidence as to how effective or ineffective the . . . regulations were or might prove to be" (footnote omitted)); Reno, 521 U. S., at 858, and n. 24, 875-876, n. 41 (same). This is not to suggest that a 10,000-page record must be compiled in every case or that the Government must delay in acting to address a real problem; but the Government must present more than anecdote and supposition. The question is whether an actual problem has been proved in this case. We agree that
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