Calm After the Storm

On Feb. 29, 1996, after months of debate, the television industry announced at a White House press conference that it would begin applying movie-style ratings to TV shows to help parents screen out objectionable programming for their children. Part of the agreement was that there would be an “oversight monitoring board,” composed of industry representatives who would review complaints about the ratings of specific shows to ensure consistency among the participants.

The group has yet to meet.

“We haven’t received any complaints,” explains Jack Valenti, chairman of the monitoring board. “We’ll meet when there’s sufficient criticism from the public or from TV critics that the rating for a TV show was egregiously applied. I’m not going to take people’s time to meet if there aren’t any problems.”

Indeed, six weeks after most of the industry began using an enhanced set of guidelines that includes symbols for sex, language, violence and suggestive dialogue, there has been little public reaction to the new system that was agreed to after a hailstorm of criticism--and threats of legislation--from members of Congress and children’s advocacy groups.

The major broadcast networks each report receiving only a handful of letters from viewers on the ratings this fall. “We get more mail when a soap opera actor changes his hairstyle,” one network official said.

Even the children’s groups that lobbied for the new system have been muted in their reaction--except to criticize NBC, which has refused to add the new S, L, V and D symbols on top of the labels designating age-appropriateness (TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14, TV-MA).

“As part of our agreement with the networks, we promised to give the new system a chance to work,” said Megan Prunty, director of the children-and-the-media program at Children Now, an advocacy group. “With the major exception of NBC, which is not providing parents with the information they need, my impression is that the networks are trying to do a responsible job. When you see ‘NYPD Blue’ on ABC, for example, the rating [usually TV-14, with several additional symbols] gives you a good idea of what’s in the show. Despite what our critics said, that’s what we were after--not changing the content but getting information on what’s in the program.”

The lack of public response has led some network executives to question whether the public really was clamoring for the new ratings guidelines, as the critics maintained last summer. “We’ve had virtually no response from viewers about our decision,” said a spokeswoman for NBC. “This proves that this was an inside-the-Beltway issue with a few activists and Washington politicians.”

But the activists and politicians disagree. “It’s too early to tell how well the ratings are being applied and how the public is responding,” said Arnold Fege, director of governmental affairs for the National PTA, which helped lobby for the additional content labels. “The new guidelines are only now appearing in TV guides, and they’re on the TV screen for just a few seconds. The TV industry--which did public service announcements about their age-based system--has done nothing similar for the new system. And they’re certainly not telling people to call the [Motion Picture Assn. of America, which Valenti heads] if they have a complaint.”

“We did PSAs [public service announcements] last year because the ratings system we introduced immediately came under fire,” said CBS Senior Vice President Martin D. Franks. “The new system has been much more widely received.”

After the networks introduced their age-based categories in January, the Washington-based Center for Media Education and other children’s advocacy groups joined Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and other congressional members in criticizing the age-based system as too broad and not helpful to parents. After congressional hearings in which parents and children’s advocates complained about the violence and sexual innuendo in shows rated TV-PG (the designation then given to two-thirds of the shows in prime time), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate commerce committee, effectively empowered the children’s groups to negotiate with the TV industry in the face of threatened ratings legislation from Congress.

McCain has been disappointed that the children’s groups have not been more vocal in their opposition to NBC’s refusal to utilize the S, V, L and D labels.

“We’re counting on the children’s groups to let parents know that NBC is not participating,” said Mark Buse, a senior aide to McCain. “I don’t think people are going to realize what NBC’s doing until V-chips [programmable electronic blocking devices] are installed in TV sets and they can’t screen out violence or sexual content on NBC shows.”

In several polls, parents have said they wanted more information about the content of TV shows, and Buse disagreed with the notion that the lack of viewer response to the networks this fall means people don’t care. “Once food manufacturers started listing ingredients on the can,” he said, “people didn’t keep lobbying, because they’d got what they wanted.”

And what about the ratings oversight board? “We’re still waiting to hear from Jack Valenti,” said Kathryn Montgomery, president of the Center for Media Education.

Montgomery, along with several TV executives who requested anonymity, said that both sides understood the board to be a place to discuss how the ratings are being applied and to work out inconsistencies among the networks, even without a formal complaint having been lodged.

“This would be the place to talk about why some syndicators aren’t applying the FV [for fantasy violence] to children’s cartoons while the same show is getting FV on the broadcast networks,” Montgomery said.

The children’s groups won the right to have five representatives added to the original 18-member industry board, which included six representatives each from broadcasting, cable and the creative guilds.

Members of the original industry group said they never met because the industry’s system immediately came under fire, and efforts were turned to defending the new system and, ultimately, negotiating a new one. Last week Valenti said that he had not selected the five new non-industry members because he had not yet received nominations from “all of the 35 or so groups that we met with” in formulating the ratings.