Let’s Pave a High Road for TV Ratings System

Later this month, the television industry is expected to announce its promised new ratings for sexual, violent and language content. Early press reports, based on leaks from the industry coalition committee creating the ratings, indicate that the new system will be modeled on the one used by the Motion Picture Assn. of America. The committee, headed by MPAA President Jack Valenti, is moving ahead despite the fact that this approach to TV ratings is seriously flawed and is opposed by most parents, advocacy groups and media researchers and by many in the industry itself.

The reported new system will provide ratings for TV shows based on their suitability for young people, such as the G, PG, PG-13 and R movie ratings. By contrast, most of the public advocacy groups and media scholars have recommended ratings based on program content. Content-based ratings, which provide separate descriptions of the level or kind of violence, sex and coarse language in programs, are already in use on premium cable networks, including HBO and Showtime.

Content ratings are more desirable for several important reasons. First, ratings that do not provide some descriptions of program content are less useful. For example, a PG-13 or R rating makes a judgment about whether a film or TV show is appropriate for certain child-age audiences. However, what is appropriate for some families may not be for others. Content-based ratings would allow different consumers to make choices appropriate to their own values and tastes.

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The industry has pledged that its ratings will be useful to parents, helping them to block unwanted shows using the much-heralded V-chip. But a recent national survey of parents sponsored by the PTA and conducted by University of Wisconsin researchers found that 80% of parents would prefer a system that identifies programs by content rather than the age group for which the programming is appropriate. Parents surveyed said the HBO rating system, which specifies the type and level of sex, violence and language, is significantly more helpful to them and more objective than the MPAA ratings.

Also, a growing body of evidence indicates that children, wanting to feel more grown-up, will likely be attracted to programs identified for older audiences, especially if they are told not to watch them. For example, the National Television Violence Study found that many children are attracted to programs with prescriptive warning labels such as PG-13 or R. The industry’s proposed age-based ratings are therefore likely to be magnets for each lower age group. As far as keeping child-age audiences away from problematic programming, the effect of the new system might be worse than no ratings at all.

Despite all this, the industry appears to be moving ahead with an MPAA-style model, leaving observers to wonder why. Much of the speculation centers on the possible economic repercussions of different rating systems. The industry may assume that age-based ratings will be less likely than content ratings to cause a loss of audiences and advertisers, which is an unproved assumption.

The Valenti committee has very efficiently rebuffed other ratings options. Canadian TV programmers, who had successfully tested the V-chip technology using ratings that combined age and content descriptions, have been persuaded to follow the American model, whatever it may be. In this country, TV manufacturers have likewise been lobbied to alter their standard for the V-chip to include only enough electronic information for one MPAA-style rating system.

It might be assumed that selling the new system to the public also will be relatively easy, since the entire television industry will likely contribute free air time to such an effort. But the MPAA ratings approach has many powerful foes. The National PTA, armed with the overwhelming evidence of its parent survey, is certain to weigh in against the system, as is the National Education Assn. The American Medical Assn., which considers media violence a public health issue, has branded the movie rating system “fundamentally flawed.” Within the industry itself, the Caucus of Producers, Writers and Directors, rejecting the age-based model, has issued its own content-based ratings. Industry leaders may be surprised at the intensity of opposition they encounter if the ratings committee moves ahead as planned.

It is ironic that the TV industry, which resisted any rating system for decades on 1st Amendment grounds, now appears to be opting for a system that judges content instead of simply describing it. The industry’s former reluctance to rate programs was based on a sound impulse. A society that values freedom of expression should be extremely cautious about assigning warning labels to ideas, whether those ideas are presented in a political speech or in a television sitcom. The industry still has the opportunity to take the high road, both in terms of providing the public what it wants and doing the least damage to its own freedoms.