TV Ratings Code Nears Completion

NEW YORK —  One month before it plans to unveil the much-anticipated ratings system for television, the industry committee devising the standards is close to settling on five or six categories based on the familiar code of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, according to sources involved in the talks.

While the final decision has not been made, committee sources say the categories are likely to be G (for general audiences), PG (parental guidance suggested), either PG-7 or PG-8 (may be inappropriate for children under 7 or 8 years old), PG-13 and PG-17.

There will be no R rating for television (a category that producers of NBC’s “Law & Order” and other 10 p.m. dramas had feared would be given to their shows, stigmatizing them with advertisers).

The committee will meet again Dec. 3 and plans to finalize the system on Dec. 18, then announce it at a press conference on Dec. 19.

The ratings are being developed for use with the so-called “V-chip” technology that will enable parents to equip their television sets to block programs that carry a rating they deem unsuitable for their children. Manufacturers won’t begin selling “V-chip” sets until 1998, but broadcast and cable outlets are expected to begin using the ratings by February.

Under terms of an agreement between industry representatives and the White House earlier this year, each network and program distributor will decide on the ratings for its programs.

Industry executives are loath to speculate publicly at this point on what ratings specific shows might get, but sources said executives at each network already have begun internal discussions about what ratings they might give their shows. They expect most shows on the major broadcast networks to be rated G or PG, in keeping with their contention that there isn’t much sex or violence in their fare.

ABC’s police drama “NYPD Blue” probably would get a PG-13, sources said, as would CBS’ action hour “Walker, Texas Ranger.”

PG-17, sources said, probably will be reserved primarily for racier shows on pay cable, such as “Red Shoe Diaries,” an erotic drama on Showtime, and some HBO stand-up comedy programs that feature coarse language.

Sexual double-entendres present a dilemma for the networks. Sources said NBC executives have discussed giving a PG to their popular comedy “Friends,” but there may be pressure from other networks, anticipating public criticism, to give it a PG-13 because of its adult humor.

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Newscasts will be exempt from ratings but no decision has been made yet on whether that will extend to newsmagazines such as ABC’s “PrimeTime Live” or CBS’ “60 Minutes.” Some committee members have argued that rating such shows would raise problems with respect to the networks’ 1st Amendment rights as news organizations.

Talk shows such as CNN’s “Larry King Live” are expected to be rated. And, sources said, animated shows also will be labeled under the same standards, not given a separate “cartoon” rating, as some had originally envisioned. This could mean that Fox’s action-oriented “X-Men,” for example, could get a more restrictive rating than, say, CBS’ gentler “Timon & Pumbaa.”

The implementation committee--headed by MPAA President Jack Valenti and including executives of the networks and representatives of the creative guilds--has been meeting regularly since last spring to devise the ratings system. Valenti and other members have met with Hollywood producers (many of whom oppose the idea of any ratings for TV), child psychologists and representatives from children’s advocacy and community groups.

But the final deliberations in recent weeks have been a closely guarded secret.

“There are so many people who feel strongly about TV ratings that, whatever we come up with, we’ll be criticized,” one committee member said last week.

Indeed, some parents and children’s advocates already have said they favor a TV ratings system that, like one that has been tested in Canada, provides specific information about the amount of sex, violence and coarse language in each program. In a survey commissioned by the National Parents Teachers Assn. that was released last week, 80% of the parents surveyed said they favored a system that would give them such information.

But committee sources said the ratings plan they are devising will not include explanations about why a show got a particular rating.

Responding to the PTA survey last week, Valenti said in a statement, “We are trying to devise a TV parental guidance system which will be family-friendly, easy to understand, easy to use and, most of all, grounded in honorable purpose so that parents can better monitor and supervise the TV-watching of their children.”