Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 2, 1993                   TAG: 9309010295
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TV NETWORKS

The warnings that network television executives have agreed to broadcast before violent programs undoubtedly will not be phrased in such a cynical fashion. But the most straightforward wording is likely to deliver much the same message: Go to the bathroom now; you don't want to miss anything.

Let's face it. Most people who watch violent TV shows aren't bushwhacked. The promise of violence is used frequently to advertise the shows. ``No one would listen,'' an announcer intones ominously as a woman cowers before a very big, very strong and very mean-looking man. This should turn viewers' stomachs. Instead, it turns viewers on. People tune in hoping to see something exciting, thrilling, shocking. (Perhaps not actually shocking. There's little that shocks anymore, so jaded have we become.)

The parental advisories that the four broadcast networks have agreed to air before violent programs are a start in the direction of more responsible programming.

It is good for freedom of expression, and for the country, that the new policy is self-directed, not dictated by government censors. And some children might benefit.

The problem is that many of the parents who are present to see the advisory and concerned enough to put the show off limits are likely to be parents who already know adult programming from kiddie vid, and who already put limits on the TV viewing in their households.

What about the rest of the kids?

Massive exposure to ever-escalating violence inures human beings to the horror of it. All of us, not just children.

But children in their formative years are of special concern. They have little experience of life, and they're soaking up messages about how to live it from every source available, good and bad. They're soaking up a lot of garbage from TV, especially when parents allow them to sit in front of it for hour after hour. Adults are being damaged too.

To the extent that advisories will help conscientious parents set viewing guidelines for their children, the networks' move is not a bad thing, and probably a good thing. It would be a more effective thing, however, if networks followed up by reducing the violent content of shows.

Network executives are acting in hopes of staving off a threat from Congress to mandate an independent rating system that could be combined with technology to let parents lock out programs that get a ``violent'' rating. That would be helpful. But even that measure wouldn't get to the larger problem of the unconscionable amount of violence all viewers are exposed to daily.

Which is why it is a bit more heartening that the accord between the networks and their congressional critics will be accompanied by an ``awareness campaign'' by Hollywood studios to encourage producers to cut down on the violence. It's past time to make this a concern. This is matter not just of taste, but of good citizenship.

And the same applies to viewers. Television is a money-making business that will continue to make money only if it satisfies a large enough share of the customers. The networks, which have lost viewers already to cable channels that often offer more violent and raunchier fare, must find a receptive audience if and when they make a serious effort to tone down the schlock. Stay tuned.